Re “Equal Not the Same as ‘the Same’?”
Dear George,
In your recent piece in The Front Page, you said “According to the (School) Board's newly passed Policy 4400, if La Ballona (School) wants to hire a language adjunct to help its immersion students learn the subtle intricacies of speaking Spanish, it now must go through the District and pay higher wages and benefits for that service, more than El Marino would pay.”
I believe that is the opposite of what the policy states.
The policy specifically exempts any work which is not performed by a regular employee under a CCUSD job classification.
Adjuncts are not a CCUSD job classification, and therefore do not fall under Policy 4400.
If La Ballona chose to do exactly the same as El Marino, I believe the Board policy would not prohibit them from doing so. At the meeting where the proposed policy was discussed, adjuncts were cited as a specific example of work not covered by the policy, and this was mentioned at the School Board meeting as well.
My understanding is that La Ballona parents have chosen to pursue a different route. But I believe that they would be free to hire adjuncts if they so chose.
If the policy did not contain this exemption, I would not have supported it, and neither would many other parents.
George N. Laase replies: I agree that a District policy, such as Board Policy 4400, has been a long time in coming. It finally codifies what each school's booster clubs can and cannot do.
As it stands, alone, Board Policy 4400 is good. And it actually covered all the schools in the District – for about 15 minutes.
That is, until the Board also passed a District Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with El Marino. As written, BP 4400 does cover all District schools.
But in actual practice, Board Policy 4400, in combination with the El Marino's MOU, exempts it from much of BP 4400. El Marino's MOU shoots a huge hole through BP 4400. A hole big enough to drive a language school through.
The Board's passage of both BP 4400 and its MOU with El Marino codifies an inequity among our elementary schools.
Sure La Ballona can go out and hire their own language adjuncts, if they want. But, according to BP 4400, La Ballona's immersion program has to go through the District to do so. El Marino's MOU exempts it from having to go through the same district process. So it can hire its adjuncts for less. Giving El Marino an advantage in schooling their children. Same program, different costs for adjunct services.
Mr. Levin, President of the five-month-old United Parents of Culver City union, may be contacted at Steven.Levin@ca.rr.com
Mr. Laase, an essayist, may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
