Rita Gomez, right, a food service worker, and her husband, Carlos, with Craig Gooder, left, a permanent substitute teacher, protest outside the Thursday School Board meeting at the Edward Greer Education Center.
Thursday, May 14, 2009 | 7:30 p.m.
Sue Schucker, a library aide, left, and Randy T. Morris, a painter for the Clark County School District, picket in front of the Edward Greer Education Center, 2832 E. Flamingo Road, as the Clark County School Board meets on Thursday. They are members of the Education Support Employees Association, the union that represents school support staff.
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- Ready for the coming cuts (5-6-2009)
- Hundreds of support staff to learn of layoffs this week (5-3-2009)
- Governor signs bill on teacher job notifications (4-28-2009)
- Local battles on teacher pay cuts will follow action in Carson City (4-20-2009)
- School District must cut another $19.9 million (4-14-2009)
- Stimulus money isn't coming easy (4-13-2009)
About 20 members of the Education Support Education Association – the workers who serve food, help teachers, drive buses and keep schools clean – picketed the Clark County School Board meeting tonight, protesting layoff notices that went out last week.
About 600 letters were mailed last week informing support staff members that they would not have a job in the fall.
Union President Belinda “Bo” Yealy said the Clark County School District did not follow the proper procedure in determining who would be laid off.
Usually when layoffs are needed, a meeting is held with union officials and the district identifies positions that are being eliminated and positions that are available to be filled, Yealy said. Employee qualifications and seniority are then used to determine who will move into which jobs and who will ultimately be laid off, she said.
Because that did not happen, she said, some employees were put into jobs they were not qualified for and other employees were moved to schools far from their current ones.
Superintendent of Schools Walt Rulffes said a union official earlier this year agreed to forgo the process. He said he thinks the official is no longer with the union.
At the meeting, Yealy addressed the board, asking for more transparency in the process, and board members used the opportunity to talk about the difficulty of funding schools during the state budget crisis.
“This has been agonizing to look at what has been happening to education in this state, and you have no idea how hurt we are about what is going on with our employees and our schools,” board member Linda Young said. “It has been a struggle for us. We know that you make the difference for education for students.”
The union members picketed on Flamingo Road outside the Greer Center for two hours, then entered the School Board meeting before the board began a discussion on its 2009-10 budget, which begins July 1.
Craig Gooder said he was one of the employees moved to a position he is not qualified for. A permanent substitute teacher at Ullom Elementary School, Gooder said he was reassigned become a Title I teacher and family assistant at a middle school, but he is not on the list of employees qualified for that job.
The School Board voted to eliminate all permanent substitute positions.
“What they’ve done isn’t right,” Gooder said. He said he hoped the protest would “raise awareness to the public and awareness maybe to other employees.”
Yealy said that while the union wants to get a message to the School Board that it should follow the rules, it also wants to send a message to the state Legislature, which is struggling with falling revenue as it puts together the budget for the next biennium.
“We shouldn’t be here in the first place,” she said. “Ultimately, the Legislature needs to find ways to fund education.”
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