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The SEIU local 99, which represents classified LAUSD employees, such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians and teaching assistants, invited Superintendent John Deasy to spend a shift “walking in their shoes” — or in their hairnets, as it were.

Deasy spent the early Wednesday yesterday preparing and serving food at Esteban Torres High School in East Los Angeles.

“The thing that amazed me was how everyone in the cafeteria knew the students’ names and even encouraged them to eat,” Deasy told Barbara Jones of the LA Daily News. “They know each other on a personal level. The students are deeply respectful of the cafeteria workers, and the workers are very caring.”

Some of the food Deasy prepared went to LAUSD’s Breakfast in the Classroom, which serves breakfast to low-income students during class. The program became the subject of a pitched battle between SEIU and the teachers union, which said the in-class meals distracted students and left a mess. After Deasy put the program’s fate up for a vote, the School Board voted unanimously to keep and even expand it.

(above photos courtesy of the SEIU local 99)

Previous posts: Deasy & Allies Prevail at May Board Meeting; Deasy’s School Breakfast Gambit Confuses Supporters; Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union