Everyone seems to be in favor of community schools— unions, parent groups, the CA DOE, Jill Biden.  That’s a good thing— it’s what our schools should be and if what’s on offer now is too little money without enough community control, we should fight for more of both. What I worry about, and what I don’t think everyone agrees on, is who will staff the services and support for these schools and what their wages and conditions will be. 

Some of the staffing possibilities seem okay: nurses, social workers, and other professionals from public service agencies or local non-profits will not make as much as their private sector counterparts, but they make real money, have some job rights and have enough hours outside of school time that they can make a living. But what about the tutors, advisors, group leaders, sports coaches, program managers? They’re not professionals and don’t have any rights as full employees.  Will they be hired through non-profits serving as labor contractors? The school districts will work hard not to have them as district employees. (They’d be in a union! They would have call-back or transfer rights! They would have to be paid more than minimum wage!) 

Whether they are district employees or contract labor, would they get enough hours and enough pay to make a living? Many of the jobs would be part-time by nature (e.g. after-school for three hours for the school year only).  For some people, like college students looking for a part-time job, this might be okay if they made a reasonable wage.  But the community members these schools are supposed to recruit for such positions will need another job that doesn’t conflict. Can some of these positions have enough hours within the school day as well as outside of school hours so that these can be real jobs (Tutors? Classroom aides?).  Can they be laid off or terminated without rules and without cause?

Will the community school services start to replace school (and union) jobs?  Will after-school college counselors or nurses start to replace our existing counselors and nurses, or to justify not hiring more when they’re needed? Or will we be able to expand the numbers of these support personnel hired by the school districts and have part of their hours after school? And what about custodians? Will some of them be assigned to the ‘evening shift’? Will they be asked to work more hours? 

When I worked at Oakland Tech we were able to hire Student Support Specialists for each academy program, primarily assigned to supporting at-risk students. We knew that we couldn’t get them as district employees since the money was only for 5 years, but we worked with a local non-profit to set up the jobs. They staffed a study hall at lunch and after school, managed signups for field trips, had check-in meetings with students, etc.   They worked from 10 to 5 and had health benefits and sick leave.

It’s the responsibility of school district unions, certificated and classified, to make sure that everyone in our schools have real jobs they can live on, with real job rights.  Otherwise they will be used to replace district employees and undercut wages.  We’re the workers in this situation with some power and therefore a responsibility to defend people working in our schools who have less power.

David de Leeuw OEA retired