The Board of Trustees of the San Diego Unified School District on Tuesday unanimously voted to approve agreements that will allow all staff members who would otherwise be laid off an opportunity to accept new positions within the district.<\/p>\n
In a separate vote, the board approved cutting 221 classified, or non-educator, positions. Of those 221 positions, only 133 were currently occupied; the remaining 88 were vacant.<\/p>\n
Trustee Shana Hazan said she was \u201creally pleased that we are ending up where we are tonight\u201d ahead of the vote that included the agreements.<\/p>\n
More experienced employees are able to bump other employees and take over their roles during lay-off periods. Some of the employees whose positions were being cut could bump into a vacant position or receive a role based on seniority.<\/p>\n
After all of the bumping, 69 employees were not going to have jobs due to not having seniority or there not being a vacancy for them to bump into until this agreement with classified unions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The agreements say that employees will still be subject to layoffs if they do not meet the minimum requirements for a job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The district announced Monday that it had reached the tentative agreements with the bargaining units for operation support services, paraeducators and office-technical and business services between April 22 and May 1.<\/p>\n
San Diego Unified Spokesperson James Canning wrote in a text Tuesday evening that there are minimum qualifications for some paraeducator jobs that are state mandated. But he wrote that Human Resources already did an analysis so they should all screen through, but they have to do that process, as well as applications.<\/p>\n
Miguel Arellano, president of the paraeducators unit, said in a public comment Tuesday that it was not the best agreement, but it is the minimum of what people deserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be very clear, if we want our students to feel safe, seen, heard and valued from preschool to high school graduation, the people closest to them need to feel the same,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is more work for us to do to address the harm being done to our classified staff and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the staff deserve training for their new positions.<\/p>\n