I am a proud classified employee at the Kelseyville Unified School District. For those of you who don”t know what a classified employee is; we are the custodians, secretaries, cooks, aides, bus drivers, maintenance workers, librarians and general support staff. We are not as high profile as the teachers who educate your children but without us you would have to drive your students to school, send them with a breakfast and/or lunch from home, there would be no one to take calls for parent communication or process student grade reports or the plethora of things a school secretary does, the classrooms and facilities would not only be filthy and unhealthy, they would also quickly fall into disrepair.
It is an unfortunate fact that when budget cuts become necessary the cuts begin with classified folks. This year at Kelseyville we began the year with no noon-duty aides to keep the playgrounds safe or work the crosswalks in the morning and afternoons, custodial services were cut, clerical was cut and due to lack of bus drivers our mechanic is driving a route most days. Those of us who were lucky enough to keep our jobs this year have had to do our best to “suck up” the work of our laid off comrades. However, services have been sacrificed and the public has vocalized their displeasure on a daily basis to a dedicated group of workers who are doing the best we can with the little the state has given us to work with.
Classified workers are huge supporters of our teachers. We work side by side on our campuses to support our students and the public. Teachers have felt the impact of the budget crisis as well and it is unfortunate that class sizes will be increased on the heels of all instructional aides being laid off. They too are being asked to do more with a lot less and it is taking its toll.
A brilliant teacher and I were speaking when she brought a grand plan to mind. Why are the schools continuing to do State mandated testing such as the CAHSEE exam and the STAR tests when the state isn”t fully funding education? The schools are footing the bill for substitute teachers so instructors can proctor exams, the ordering of tests, the shipping them back to have them scored and the entire time students are not in their classrooms receiving educational instruction. CAHSEE was given to all sophomores this year even when the state did not send schools the study guides! Passing the CAHSEE is a state-mandated prerequisite to receiving a diploma. The STAR test runs approximately three school weeks!
If the state does not fund their schools then they should drop their list of expensive demands placed on those schools. A two-year moratorium should be placed on state-mandated testing and the money the state saves should be placed back into education funding. This is a win?win in my opinion. The state saves money (to go back into education funding), the district saves money and the students are receiving more instructional time in the classroom.
Holley Luia
Kelseyville
