These days you hear a lot of talk about affordability. We talk about inflation, growing inequality, rents, our growing homeless population, how expensive housing and food is and how we’ve become ever more divided between the haves and the have nots.
And it’s a lot to make sense of as individuals and as a city. Do we believe in a livable wage? Do we want the people in the service sectors to be able to be our neighbors? I mean do we? Are we prepared to pay what it costs for people who work in our community to afford to live in it?
Last time around we looked at some class size issues and I repeatedly asked, where’s the money, SMMUSD? Without an option to hire more teachers, the administration’s best solution offered was to hire more in-classroom aids. But they can’t seem to find anyone. Let’s look at what being a SMMUSD classroom assistant looks like:
Starting pay is $16/hour with a three or a six-hour daily assignment. If you work over 7 hours you qualify for full benefits—they only allow up to 6 hours a day max.
Gee, I wonder why they can’t find anyone? Now I understand that two of the biggest annual SMMUSD expenditures go to certificated teachers and benefits programs, and of course I understand that there’s a lot of other pots to fill with limited resources. But sometimes paying people less costs you more later or as the English say, it’s "pennywise and pound foolish."
Case in point: the 2022 $45M jury award for the use of corporal punishment by a behavioral aid (Paraeducator—special education starting salary $16.40/hour).
(https://smdp.com/2022/10/22/special-needs-parents-win-45-million-lawsuit-over-abuse-at-smmusd-school/) What made the jury award so high was that the abuse was reported and allowed to continue for months. Then as the Juan Cabrillo Elementary closed and the lawsuit progressed administrators moved the behavioral aid to Franklin Elementary. https://smdp.com/2022/11/05/questions-persist-about-aid-involved-in-45-million-settlement/ It wasn’t until the jury award that they put her on home assignment.
Why did they allow the aid to continue to work with these two non-verbal autistic kids after she’d been reported abusing them? And why would they keep her on staff and move her to another school after an allegation of abuse was known about?
I’m not part of the administration, so I can only speculate on how a situation like that was allowed to persist, but I have been told by other aids (again not administrators) that it was simply because they didn’t have anyone to replace her and they legally had to have someone there with the twins. I would love to hear a better explanation from the SMMUSD, but the issue is clear, they can’t seem to fill these positions, they pay terribly, but they legally must have the positions filled, which leads us to third-party contractors…
Case in point 2: According to the SEIU 99 rep, the labor union that represents classified workers (inclusive of aids and paraeducators) "SMMUSD is subcontracting out paraprofessional work due to high demand and low retention. Low pay makes it difficult for the school district to recruit and retain paraprofessionals and instructional assistants."
So how much are they paying these third-party sub-contractors? I would imagine it would have to be more than $16/hour since that’s barely above minimum wage… so if that’s true, instead of paying SMMUSD employees a livable wage they’re paying third-party for-profit companies more?
Seems pretty short-sighted to me, not to mention upsetting. I mean these are people working with kids with special needs and assisting our teachers in classrooms, both difficult important jobs, and we’re not taking care of them?
And before you @ me, just know that according their website, LAUSD pays a starting salary of $20.52 for classroom assistants/$22.85 paraeducators, which is not great but it’s a lot better than $16 & $16.40/hour and LAUSD operates on a much tighter per pupil budget than SMMUSD.
So, who really suffers here? Well definitely the kids and teachers who aren’t getting enough assistants. Not to mention the assistants themselves who are under paid and often have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Is this who we are?
Can we as a city have it all? Can we have beautifully manicured lawns, amazing weather, excellent public infrastructure and a livable wage? Can we be a town that attracts the wealthiest people in the world, is also is feasible for service workers and takes care of its homeless population?
I don’t have an easy answer for those questions, but I do know we can afford to pay the people who work with our kids and assist our teachers something comparable to our larger less-funded neighbors to the East.
SEIU is currently negotiating a new contract. So, my sincerest hope is that they walk away with something that is fair for all.
Next time we’ll take a break from the schools and discuss some city politics. In the meantime, thanks for reading and happy belated Halloween!
Miles Warner is a Santa Monica parent and resident. His column will explore the emerging and changing identity of our city and stir the pot…a bit
