Classified staff at Sequim School District rally for raises

SEQUIM — Classified staff at Sequim School District want their piece of the McCleary pie.

At the Sequim School Board meeting Monday, classified staff — paraeducators, maintenance and custodial employees, secretaries, transportation and exempt administrative employees — and their supporters voiced the need for equitable wages as classified unions remain in collective bargaining with the district.

Classified staff asked the district for $703,574 of state funding to be equitably distributed to classified positions; district officials later said the district has received about $669,000 for those positions.

Union representatives claim the district received in July this amount of money from the state to increase classified salaries per the state Supreme Court’s McCleary ruling.

“The intent of McCleary was to enhance salaries for classified and certified [staff],” said Elizabeth Joers, Sequim Association of Paraeducators president.

Cristi McCorkle, a Washington Education Association representative involved in negotiations for the paraeducators union, said the money allocated for classified salaries is based on a number of factors, including regionalization and the full-time-equivalent (FTE) count for classified staff in the district.

Joers said paraeducator bargaining started in July and remains in negotiations.

She said money allocated by the state Legislature in the wake of the McCleary ruling is an opportunity to make paraeducator salaries a profession that supports living wages.

Union representatives said paraeducators take home about $1,100 per paycheck and work part-time hours between six and six-and-a-half hours per day, five days a week.

Joers said paraeducators play several different roles in their daily jobs, from classroom aides to cleaning bathrooms to supervising the playground. They represent about 48 percent of classified staff, according to numbers presented by union representatives, with 73 paraeducators in the district.

“We’re just asking for what is fair and equitable,” Joers said. “That’s how we came into bargaining.”

The Sequim Education Association, representing teachers, ratified a new contract with the district at the end of August.

Before the board meeting Monday, 30 to 40 paraeducators rallied along North Sequim Avenue and West Fir Street to advocate for salary increases and equitable living wages.

Linda Sundquist, a paraeducator at Greywolf Elementary School, rallied with other paraeducators on Monday. She is a single mother and became a paraeducator to work during the same hours that her daughter attended school so she could be home with her daughter at night.

Sundquist said she holds a bachelor’s degree and has been an employee with the district for 14 years and is making a little more than $16 per hour.

At the board meeting, several parents and staff acknowledged the work of paraeducators and the impact their work has had on students at Sequim Schools.

“You all know the intent of the McCleary ruling was to bring educators and support staff salaries up to a living wage in order to fully fund public education,” said Carol Lichten, a paraeducator at Greywolf Elementary School.

“I can’t say what the district’s bargaining team is offering to paraeducators, but I can say it’s not reasonable and nowhere near the living wage. If we’re all important then all of us should get an equitable piece of the pie.”

Erik Wiker, a parent of several students at Sequim schools and high school physical education teacher, said he had a son who struggled with reading throughout school and was able to get the extra help he needed because the staff was there to help him.

“That’s an impact for a lifetime,” he said. “As a teacher, I teach adapted P.E. at the high school and I see the paras on a daily basis working wonders with the kids.”

Sequim Schools Superintendent Gary Neal said the district intends to use state-funded money allocated for salaries for that purpose.

“What I can confirm is the money allocated for salaries is being used for salaries,” Neal said.

“(The district) is looking at how this (funding) plays out for the next four years. We have to go through the amount given to us, fit it in and make it work with the number of employees we have.”

District officials would like to see how this year goes with the new state funding and salary models, Neal said, so the district is able to plan accordingly for the following years.

“We certainly agree to the hard work they [classified staff] do and the importance they have in the public education setting,” he said.

“We can’t do this without them and we need them, but we have to allocate our resources appropriately.”

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Erin Hawkins is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at ehawkins@sequimgazette.com.