SMMUSD classified staff lobbying the board for Hero Pay
By Sam Kohn, Co-Editor-in-Chief
SMMUSD’s classified staff have been pushing for “Hero Pay” for the essential work they have been and are continuing to do during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of March 5, despite numerous public speakers demanding action from SMMUSD’s Board of Education, Hero Pay has not been a listed item in board meeting agendas during the 2021 calendar year.
Due to activity on SMMUSD campuses from administration, in-school extracurricular activities and separate entities such as club soccer programs, maintenance staff have worked to keep campuses clean and operational. On Feb. 18 during an SMMUSD board meeting, multiple custodians and maintenance workers came to passionately speak on behalf of Hero Pay during public comments, including Will Rogers custodian Anthony Davis.
“We have had a couple of [COVID-19] cases over at [Will Rogers] and we as the custodians are the ones that [have] to go in and spray and sanitize the rooms for it to be safe all over again. I feel that we deserve Hero Pay because we are the first on the line,” Davis said
According to Cesar Herrera, a decade-long maintenance worker for SMMUSD and one of the public speakers at the Feb. 18 board meeting, workers are supposed to receive notifications when and where certain staff members contract COVID-19, but none have been sent out. This leads to maintenance staff having to discuss the dangers of COVID-19, not due to any notification from administration, but via word of mouth from other co-workers.
“The teachers are taken care of. The office staff are taken care of. The board members are taken care of. What about us? We have been in the trenches and left in the dark,” Herrera said during the board meeting.
Samo nurse Carolina Rodriguez confirmed the existence of a COVID-19 contact tracing system, pointing towards the Case Response Guide that can be found on the SMMUSD website in their “Health Services” section under the “Departments” tab. This opposes Herrera’s claims that multiple of his co-workers have contracted COVID-19 yet received no information from the district on their condition.
“If a confirmed case was present on a SMMUSD site during the infectious period, HR will notify employees and contractors who were present at the site during the infectious period,” the Case Response Guide said.
In response to the passionate commenters at the Feb. 18 board meeting, of which some came before the allotted time for general public comments, Board President Jon Kean admitted that talk of Hero Pay has yet to come to the agenda of the board.
“It was not on the agenda last meeting… I’m involved in making the agendas and I certainly didn’t see it. Like I said, it is an important subject and we’d like to hear from you, but it has to be during general public comment. We have not as a board agendized this yet,” Kean said during the Feb. 18 board meeting.
The last meeting Kean mentions was on Feb. 8. The board meetings on March 1 and March 4 also did not put Hero Pay on the agenda, despite this topic continually representing the majority of general public comments. Board members have yet to state their opinions on Hero Pay. Brianna Cornejo-Perez is Samo’s ASB Student Member of the Board, whose role is to attend all SMMUSD board meetings on behalf of the Samo student body. Cornejo-Perez recognizes that Hero Pay as a topic has been neglected from discussion amongst board members.
“We likely have not seen [Hero Pay] brought to the forefront of our discussions due to the attention to our school reopening plans and vaccine availability among staff. I believe that [Hero Pay] is an essential recompense that should be addressed along with any plans to return to campus. The ability to safely return is only possible through the cleaning and sanitizing efforts of our dedicated maintenance staff,” Cornejo-Perez said
Though the SMMUSD board has yet to take action, essential workers like Herrera and Davis will continue to argue for the implementation of Hero Pay for the frontline work they have done to keep SMMUSD afloat during the past year. The next board is on Wednesday, March 24, and can be viewed by searching under the “Board of Education” section on smmusd.org.
