Staff at the Sequim School District continue to rally and advocate for equitable wages as contract negotiations persist for paraeducators, bus drivers, secretaries, maintenance staff and some administrative employees.

Several classified staffers voiced their concerns about the status of contract negotiations and the need for living wages at the Sequim School board of directors’ Oct. 1 meeting.

Cal Scott, a bus driver for the district, said he is concerned about the status of transportation employees contracts.

“We don’t know where we’re at at this stage,” he said. “We’re perturbed and upset that we have had no continuing communication to us — the drivers — in the department as to what’s taking place or what’s happening.”

Scott said bus drivers are hoping for improvements with a new contract to address childhood safety on the school buses along with wage increases and benefits.

“We are concerned that we as bus drivers do not have the ability to maintain, follow up and handle discipline on the buses in such a manner that it becomes safe for us, the children involved, and the rest of the citizens in the county,” Scott said.

He said Sequim’s school bus drivers are not

receiving a living wage commensurate with other school district drivers in the region.

“We have found that we are somewhere between 5 and 15 percent below what our fellow bus drivers are paid including the retirement benefit that’s paid in,” Scott said.

“We are concerned that this negotiation takes into account the needs of the bus drivers.”

In an interview prior to Monday night’s board meeting, Scott said the Teamsters union (representing the bus drivers) was offered a 3.1 percent cost of living increase from the district as suggested by the McCleary ruling as of about three weeks ago — which was the last he had heard from the union representative.

Scott said there are 29 drivers in the district and their contracts expired on Aug. 31. Their union has remained in negotiations since May, he said.

The school district’s paraeducators also remain in contract negotiations, and about 10-15 rallied along North Sequim Avenue and West Fir Street on Oct. 1 before the board meeting.

Melissa Carmichael, a parent, spoke on behalf of paraeducators at the board meeting about their importance in the school district after her daughter, a second-grader at Helen Haller Elementary School, broke her leg and was confined to a wheelchair.

She said a paraeducator at the elementary school was specifically trained to help her daughter while she attended school in a wheelchair.

“If that (arrangement) wouldn’t have been in place for us, we potentially could have been homeless,” she said.

“It takes two incomes a day to make it and in my circumstances it could have been a really traumatic event for us on top of our child having that traumatic event.”

District response

Sequim School District Human Resources Director, Randy Hill, said in an interview on Oct. 2 that the Teamsters and the maintenance and custodial unions were offered tentative contract agreements in the last few weeks.

He said he could not comment on what tentative agreements were made because union members still need to ratify the contracts. The Teamsters met with him last week when the tentative agreement was finalized, Hill said.

“The Teamsters contract has been accepted and recommended by Teamsters and the district,” Hill said. “So we have a tentative agreement but I can’t give details because they (union members) need to vote.”

As far as a lack of communication between the Teamsters and the district, Hill said, “That’s an internal thing and everybody needs to talk to their people.”

“We (the district) value what they do and hopefully this contract will take care of them,” he said.

Sequim paraeducators, secretaries and exempt administrative contracts remain in open negotiations, Hill said.

Hill said the district meets with the secretaries on Oct. 8 and with paraeducators again on Oct. 10.

“The people we’re working with have the same goals as we do, which is to get it done,” Hill said. “We reached an agreement with custodial and transportation and the teachers as well, so we’re going to get it done; it’s just a matter of how long we take.”

Other board business

Assistant superintendent Jennifer Maughan announced that she applied for a healthy kids-healthy schools grant for the district amounting to about $193,000.

The money would be used to purchase playground equipment for Helen Haller and Greywolf Elementary Schools to be more inclusive of special education students and it also covers kitchen equipment to be installed across Sequim schools.

The state legislature approved $2.25 million in the 2017-2019 capital budget for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to administer a grant program for nutrition, physical education and activity and student sustainability awareness.

Maughan said about $41,196 of the grant covers installing freezers at each school in the district — including both elementary schools, Sequim Middle School and Sequim High School.

This portion of the grant also would purchase ovens for both elementary schools, and four working tables to be installed at all four schools.

“We have no central kitchen (because) our freezers are housed in Kent,” she said. “The ovens that we have are small and just warming ovens, so they can’t actually cook on-site right now.”

Maughan said the equipment would not need to be installed in the kitchens because of its current structure and the new equipment only needs to be plugged in once it arrives.

The grant was due by Sept. 27 and the full amount must be spent by Dec. 30, she said. Grants are awarded by the end of October, according to OSPI’s website. Maughan said it’s possible the district could receive all or only parts of the grant funds.

“They may award the kitchens only at two of the buildings and not the others,” she said. “They could really piece what they wanted to depending on the information we gave them.”

The next school board meeting is at 6 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 15, at the district board room, 503 N. Sequim Ave.

The district also is holding a School Safety Forum from 5-7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 17, at the Sequim High School Auditorium, 503. N. Sequim Ave.

Sequim School board directors Jim Stoffer, left, Heather Short, President, Brian Kuh, and Sequim School Superintendent listen as classified staff speak out about contracts at the board meeting on Oct. 1. Sequim Gazette photo by Erin Hawkins

Melissa Carmichael, a parent of a student at Sequim Schools, stressed the importance of paraeducators at the school board meeting on Oct. 1. Sequim Gazette photo by Erin Hawkins