Among the earliest to appear were 50 people with green shirts and buttons showed up for the Green Dot Public Schools, which will have four charter schools before the board for five-year contract renewals.

“We have another bus load of people coming, we have about 75 parents, teachers and administrators coming, and we know we have to get here early because the board room is small,” said Larry Fondation, director of community engagement for Green Dot. Capacity at the LA Board meeting room is 155.

Some came prepared with folding chairs, umbrellas and laptops, but by 11 a.m. it was sweltering outside. When doors opened to the blaring sun, a few people came inside for the air conditioning, but school police wouldn’t let them sit there once the board members disappeared into closed session.

Jefferson Crain, executive officer of the board, came out to look at the long line early in the day and told the police, “Make sure they stay out of the heat.”

The lines were expected to swell. KIPP Charter school representatives began lining up early, and two groups were planning protests before the 1 p.m. meeting.

UTLA, the teachers union, scheduled a protest of the Broad charter expansion for the afternoon, and SEIU Local 99, representing classroom teacher assistants, after-school workers and supervision aides, are showing up to ask for health benefits.

“I love what I do,” said Bless Harrell, an Out-of-School Program Worker at Hooper Elementary School. “Every day, I inspire our students and spark their interest in learning. But despite my dedication to students, I am among the only district employees who can’t access the health care benefits that everyone else enjoys. I require special cancer screenings due to my family history. I wish every day for the kind of quality, affordable health insurance that all other LAUSD employees have. I need it. Badly.”

Some of the local’s 7,000 workers who are without access to the same benefits enjoyed by their colleagues are also parents of students in LAUSD schools. “By extending benefits to all employees, working parents will be able to provide their children with the care they need and not have to deny them medication or a doctor’s visit because the family just cannot afford it,” said Max Arias, executive director of the local.

An “English only” sign was posted in the cafeteria of the Koreatown school a few weeks ago.

Most cafeteria workers there are native Spanish speakers, and 86 percent of students identify as Hispanic, yet the district called the directive a safety issue.

That explanation is falling flat with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), which represents district teachers, and Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents the cafeteria workers and other district employees like bus drivers and groundskeepers.

“When the majority of cafeteria workers at the school speak Spanish, how is it safer for those workers to communicate only in English in the cafeteria or anywhere on campus?” the unions said in a joint statement. “When a great majority of cafeteria and other service workers live in the communities where they work and are often parents of children attending LAUSD schools, how does an ‘English Only’ policy promote a welcoming school community?”

Speaking to LA School Report earier this month, Monica Carazo, a district spokeswoman, said the policy only applied specifically to when food was being handled.

“It’s not that we’re telling them you can’t speak Spanish or whatever language they speak,” Carazo said. “It’s just that for safety reasons, when they’re handling food everybody has to be on the same page. If someone says, ‘Hot plate!,’ we want everyone to understand.”

The unions said the sign sends the wrong message and are calling upon the district to review the “English only” policy.

“As the District seeks broader parent engagement and stronger ties with our immigrant communities, it is necessary to re-examine this rule. In a community as diverse as Los Angeles bilingual and multilingual skills should be celebrated,” the unions’ statement said.

Why the sign was only posted at Harvard Elementary is not clear, but according to CBS Los Angeles, it has started to worry workers at other district cafeterias.

“The workers are getting concerned. They’re asking, ‘Is this English-only policy going to be in effect for everybody?’” Gamaliel Andrade, a cafeteria worker at Farmdale Elementary, told CBS. See the full CBS report below.

*UPDATED

Several LA Unified workers have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 over what they say is an improper collection of their full dues.

In the complaint, which was prepared with free legal assistance by the National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF), the employes claim SEIU Local 99 union officials denied their requests to refrain from paying full dues, according to a NRWF press release. SEIU represents employees who work in a number of non-teaching jobs in public schools, including bus drivers, gardeners and cafeteria workers.

Under federal law set by the Supreme Court in the Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, public employees that must join a union and pay dues as a requirement for employment can request to withhold payment of any fees that support political causes not related to collective bargaining.

“Because California does not have Right to Work protections for workers, workers can be forced to pay union dues and fees to an unwanted union as a condition of employment. However, under Foundation-won U.S. Supreme Court precedent, workers who refrain from union membership can also refrain from paying for union politics and members-only events,” the press release said.

The release also added that despite “the workers’ requests to refrain from union membership and full union dues payments, the Los Angeles Unified School District continues to confiscate full union dues from the workers’ paychecks at SEIU Local 99 officials’ behest.”

The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit were identified by NRWF as grounds keeper Douglas Kennedy, bus drivers Eduardo Berumen and Griselda Moran and cafeteria worker Magi Shanagian.

“SEIU officials are stonewalling workers’ attempts to refrain from paying for the union bosses’ radical political agenda,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, in a statement. “This case underscores the need for California to pass a Right to Work law making union membership and dues payments strictly voluntary.”

SEIU Local 99 Interim Executive Director Scott Washburn issued a statement on the lawsuit.

“The lawsuit filed by the National Right to Work Foundation is yet another example of this group’s attempt to silence the voice and strength of working families in this country. It is no coincidence that this suit was filed on the heels of the historic $15 per hour minimum wage increase won by school workers at LAUSD,” the statement said. “Wherever workers are making big strides to improve their lives and the wellbeing of their families and communities, we can expect to see attacks like this. SEIU Local 99 members will continue to stand strong and move forward with our efforts to ensure quality schools and good jobs for our communities.””

*Includes statement from SEIU

That might be about to change.

In a presentation to the LA Unified School Board on Tuesday, SEIU local 99 Executive Director Courtni Pugh laid out a vision to better connect community services to schools. Dubbed OASIS, for Optimizing Access to Services, Inspiring Success, the plan aims to turn local schools sites into a hub of community services, such as park space, libraries, health care providers and technology.

“Not everyone enters the classroom in the morning with the same experiences the night before,” Pugh told LA School Report. “We have to recognize that a child’s day does not start and end in the classroom.”

It is, by her own admission, not a new idea. Earlier this year, the Youth Policy Institute launched an initiative called Los Angeles Promise Neighborhoods, which aims to fuse a variety of anti-poverty services into one program centered around a school. (The idea was inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone.)

Pugh’s goal is to set up six to 12 OASIS schools within LAUSD starting in the next school year. She hopes the project will get funding from a range of sources, including the City of Los Angeles, LA Unified and non-profits.

At Tuesday’s meeting, school board members were practically falling over themselves to praise Pugh’s idea.

“I love this,” said Steve Zimmer. “This is what we should be doing.” Even Monica Ratliff, against whom Local 99 campaigned heavily against last year, thought the plan was “fantastic.”

Pugh, a former political director of the powerful LA County Federation of Labor, has headed Local 99 for just over a year. She was also recently named the chair of SEIU International’s education council. From that platform, she is wading into the education reform debate, staking out a middle ground between charter school advocates and teachers unions.

“The debate on reform is false and silo-ed,” she said.

More than half of her members have children that go to LA Unified schools, she said, and the majority of them live within 2.5 miles of schools they work in. Not only will OASIS create jobs (some, presumably, for her members), but her members will benefit from the services it creates.

In a sense, OASIS grew out of Breakfast in the Classroom, an LA Unified program that provides, well, breakfast in the classroom. It has been heavily criticized by many teachers, who said it distracted students and left a mess. But when Superintendent John Deasy put the program to the board for a vote, hundreds of service workers rallied to support it, and the normally divided board unanimously voted to continue the service.

“That was a fight that we thought was for the moral good,” said Pugh. “Our members, many of them are part of the working poor that stood to move further down the food chain if they lost their jobs.”

Pugh expects getting OASIS off the ground to be even tougher.

“This is a humongous undertaking – very complex, multiple layers and a lot of red tape involved,” she said. “It’s a big step for us.”

Previous posts: Slideshow: Deasy’s Cafeteria Shift; Deasy’s School Breakfast Gambit Confuses Supporters; Campaign 2013: How Ratliff Won (& Reformers Lost)*; Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union

Currently, only teachers get to vote for conversion. But the change in the law is winning support not only from the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), but also, according to a press release, the California Federation of Teachers (CFT).

It’s not everyday that those two line up on the same side of things.

AB917, which has been approved by both houses of the legislature and needs one last “concurrence” vote by the Assembly, would require charters to have a majority of all school employees – not just teachers — approve conversion.

“School workers bring a different perspective to the charter school process,” said Hilda Guzman, a Health Care Advocate at The Accelerated School, in a press release sent out by SEIU local 99. “We understand that students need quality services outside the classroom to support their success in the classroom. As an employee, I have knowledge about school operations that a parent or a teacher would not have.”

According to the CCSA, of the 1,063 charter schools in California, about 200 were formed through conversion. As an example, Locke High School, an underperforming school in south Los Angeles, was turned over to Green Dot in 2007 via the signature gathering process.

So why would CFT support it? Perhaps the the union believes AB917 would slow down the charter conversion process because so many more signatures would be required.

Indeed, Eric Premack, the Executive Director for the California Charter Schools Development Center, a non-profit that provides advocacy, training and leadership development for California charter schools, said he thinks the bill will make it “significantly more difficult” for schools to convert to charters.

“I think that classified employee labor groups will use it to block charters,” said Premack.

A spokesman for CFT called the bill “inclusive, involving all school employees, both certificated and classified as potential signatories on a charter petition at the school site where they work.” As a result, the email said, the workers “deserve to have their voices heard when their workplace is being considered for charter status.”

The CCSA said in a press release that the bill “creates a more substantive role for classified employees without adding any new burden on the charter school petitioners.”

The larger teachers union, California Teachers Association, is neutral on the bill.

Previous posts: Charter & District School Alternatives; Don’t Forget The “Teacher” Trigger; Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union

SEIU Executive Director Courtni Pugh

Unlike the closely watched Coalition for School Reform and the teachers union, SEIU Local 99 — which represents LAUSD classified employees like cafeteria workers and custodians — came out of Tuesday’s election an unequivocal winner.

The union was two for three on election night, having backed both Monica Garcia and Steve Zimmer — and could end up three for three if District 6 frontrunner Antonio Sanchez wins in May — though few paid attention.

“We did some incredible work,” said Courtni Pugh, Executive Director of SEIU Local 99.  “It just fell off the radar screen.”

SEIU spent significant money on Independent Expenditures — $550,000 plus another $170,000 through the LA County Federation of Labor, according to the City Ethics Commission’s website — although not as much as in 2011. It also spent, according to one source, another $200,000 on “in kind” contributions, where union staff members shift their duties from working for the union to working on a union campaign.

But perhaps most important was SEIU’s field organization. “That is the one thing the SEIU is known for,” said Pugh, estimating 100,000 doors knocked on and 40,000 voters saying they were going to support the SEIU slate. “That’s why we are a coveted endorsement.”

Previous posts: Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union; SEIU Endorses Garcia, Zimmer and Sanchez

School Board Steve Zimmer’s campaign fundraising has been less than stellar in terms of direct contributions, but it got a big boost this week courtesy of an Independent Expenditure (IE) from SEIU Local 99, which represents classified LAUSD employees.

According to the latest expenditure reports, SEIU Local 99 has thrown down $68,688 to support Zimmer, much of it going to phone-banking and polling (you can see the phone-banking script here).

Zimmer isn’t the only endorsed candidate on whose behalf SEIU Local 99 has begun spending money.  SEIU’s IE campaign also put in $14,418 in support of Monica Garcia and $48,075 in support of Antonio Sanchez.

However, the Westside District 4 contest (Zimmer vs. Kate Anderson) is the only race where the SEIU and the Coalition for School Reform have endorsed different candidates.  The Coalition for School Reform has not yet disclosed any substantial expenditures.  This week’s news suggest that the SEIU could be bracing to mount massive campaigns on behalf of its candidates, and that District 4 is shaping up to be one of the most hotly contested races.

Previous posts: Different Rules for UTLA-PACE, Update: Outside Money Pouring In, Labor Groups Spend for Garcia & Sanchez, Reform Coalition Picks Garcia, Anderson & Sanchez

The two organizations spent a combined $54,564 in support of School Board President Monica Garcia, going mostly to a poll, a field program and direct mail (see their first piece of campaign literature here). The County Fed also spent $25,161 on a flyer campaign for Antonio Sanchez, a newcomer running for the East Valley’s District 6 seat (see Sanchez flyer here). No IE spending has taken place so far in the Westside’s District 4, which pits incumbent Steve Zimmer against challenger Kate Anderson.

Independent expenditures are much like Super PACs – they are spent by organizations working independently from a candidate’s campaign and their funding isn’t subject to any contribution limits. In 2011, IEs for school board races totaled more than $4.6 million. In previous school board elections, the biggest IE campaigns have come from the Coalition for School Reform, UTLA and SEIU Local 99.

Previous posts: SEIU Endorses Garcia, Zimmer and Sanchez, Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union, Antonio Sanchez, Consensus Candidate?, Democrats Decline to Endorse Garcia, District 6: SEIU & UTLA Endorsements*

But there’s another union that arguably just as influential when it comes to LAUSD issues: SEIU Local 99, which represents non-certificated school employees (also called classified employees) such as teacher assistants, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and special education aides.

“The SEIU Local 99 gets everything they want all the time from the school board,” said one political consultant.

Sometimes, SEIU also stakes out positions that are different from those of UTLA. The most recent example is that SEIU has endorsed two candidates UTLA is backing — incumbent Steve Zimmer and newcomer Antonio Sanchez — but it has also endorsed Monica Garcia, UTLA’s main target in the upcoming election.

While many observers chalk the occasional splits between SEIU and UTLA up to SEIU’s close relationship with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, others cite more nuanced reasons.

“The difference between SEIU and UTLA is, there’s a higher likelihood that SEIU members live in higher poverty areas,” said the political consultant (who asked not to be named). “And there’s a much higher likelihood that SEIU members send their kids to crappy public schools.”

This has made SEIU members more sympathetic to school reform priorities such as teacher effectiveness, charter schools, and accountability.

It also helps that many charter are open to hiring SEIU workers. SEIU looks at charter schools and sees an environment ripe for organizing.

The strong influence SEIU has on LAUSD could be seen at the last Board meeting, on December 11, when the Superintendent asked the Board to approve the demotion of one classified employee and the dismissal of two classified employees. An SEIU representative showed up and asked the Board to reconsider. The item was postponed until January.

Courtni Pugh, SEIU

The real question is how much money SEIU will spend to get Garcia, Sanchez, and Zimmer elected.

In 2011, SEIU spent more than $850,000 in a losing effort to elect Luis Sanchez, another candidate that UTLA opposed. That’s more than the Coalition for School Reform spent on Sanchez, who lost to Bennett Kayser, the UTLA-backed candidate.

The political consultant we spoke with also noted the key role that may be played by Courtni Pugh, head of Local 99, whom he called “one of the shrewdest political strategists in the state.”

Pugh was promoted to the head of Local 99 in September.

“The fact that she’s running [SEIU] 99 should scare the bejesus out of UTLA, especially on the Monica Garcia race,” said the consultant. “It’s basically Courtni Pugh against Warren Fletcher.”

Previous posts: Antonio Sanchez, Consensus Candidate?, SEIU Endorses Garcia, Zimmer and Sanchez, District 6: SEIU & UTLA Endorsements*, Behind the Scenes: Campaign Consultants