First in a series
Today the long anticipated first formal step was taken in the developing School District battle that is pitting a non-teachers union against District leaders and parents, especially from El Marino Language School, over the status of specified teaching aides.
“We have been placed in the position of having to make the first move,” Debbie Hamme, President of the Assn. of Classified Employees, ACE, told the newspaper after presenting an official “demand to bargain” this morning to the District.
At stake is the union status of 20 language teaching aides at El Marino, funded for the past 26 years by a parent booster club known as ALLEM, Advocates for Learning Language, El Marino.
“Our demand is a request to negotiate about this under our contractual agreement with the District,” Ms. Hamme said. “Our goal is to negotiate bringing the adjuncts (teaching aides) into our unit. The District has an obligation to negotiate this.”
The pivotal message was directed to Supt. Patti Jaffe and to Human Resources Director Leslie Lockhart.
“We will answer it at the Board meeting (Tuesday night at 7, Council Chambers) after we talk to the Board,” Ms. Jaffe told the newspaper this afternoon. “Then we will give (ACE) a response.”
Ms. Hamme did not impose a deadline on the District. She said she will contact them in a week if she has not received an answer.
“The superintendent and the School Board decided they would not do anything unless we made a move first,” Ms. Hamme told the newspaper. “So we were urged, behind the scenes, to do something so they could take action.”
The ACE President said she only is seeking to bring District officials to the bargaining table “because that is who our contract is with. While I understand ALLEM is composed of a lot of concerned parents, does not have an actual legal standing in this.
“I don’t know if the District would be inclined to bring parents into a negotiating meeting.
“Dave Mielke (President of the Teachers Union) sent out a union update this week, that you printed, that said ‘ACE is being made the bad guy in all of this.’ We feel we are. “The District will get what they want if we move forward with our half of the concerns.”
(To be continued)
