"Don't forget us!" Classified staff call on Santa Rosa school district for raises

Classroom aides, custodians, office secretaries, and other classified public school staff in Santa Rosa are calling for a fair raise from the school board.

photo credit: Noah Abrams/KRCB
CSEA Labor Representative Jeremy Arnold leads chants outside the Santa Rosa
City Schools board meeting at Santa Rosa City Hall on Wednesday, August 28th.

Around 40 classified staff from Santa Rosa's chapter of the California School Employees Association, the union which represents school staff like custodians and office aides, picketed the Santa Rosa City Schools Board meeting Wednesday, calling for their share in raises recently doled out to other district staff.

Jason Andrews is Vice President and a member of the negotiating team for Santa Rosa's California School Employees Association chapter, CSEA 75.

With their contract up at the end of October, Andrews said the 600 plus classified staff in the district are asking for a fair raise.

"We feel like they are balancing the district's budget on the back of the classifieds," Andrews said. "You know, our yard duties, our childcare workers, our food service workers are some of the lowest paid workers in the area."

Base pay for classified staff in the district is $17.46 an hour.

Andrews said he thinks the Santa Rosa City Schools could help ease some of their woes by offering classified staff the 5% average raises recently agreed to with teachers and other employee groups.

"We have a lot of vacancies in certain job classes where they can't attract people to work, which is then costing the district more money," Andrews said. "So it's kind of a vicious circle."

Andrews said district negotiators walked back from a pledge to discuss classified compensation in August, and that prompted this week's picket line.

The district's new superintendent Daisy Morales said while the district's hands are tied in some ways at the moment, the classified's calls aren't going ignored.

"This is work that we're gonna have to do together, and I'm gonna be working with the fiscal stabilization, now what used to be called a budget advisory, around how we can address the shortfall that we need and make sure that our CSEA members do get the raise that they deserve," Morales said.

Linda Zabala, a 26-year Santa Rosa City Schools employee and the political action coordinator for CSEA 75, said it's going to take more than just words.

"Please don't tell us you appreciate us," Zabala said. "Show us."

The current contract for Santa Rosa City Schools Classified staff expires on October 31st.