Durham school board to hold special meeting Wednesday after more protest over pay impasse
An hour and a half into a protest outside Durham Public Schools’ downtown offices Monday, a loud cry erupted from the picketers on the sidewalk.
Someone inside the brick Central Services building had waved a red picket sign that matched those being carried by the marchers outside. Three white sheets of paper had been taped to the windows.
“We’re classified too, and we stand with you!!” they declared.
“That’s pretty awesome,” Symone Kiddoo said from across the parking lot.
Kiddoo leads the Durham Association of Educators, which organized the protest over delays in solving a pay dispute. In January, classified staff had raises withdrawn because the school district budgeted incorrectly and couldn’t afford to pay them.
The Durham school board, which had been scheduled to next meet on Thursday, will now hold a special meeting to try to resolve the matter Wednesday, according to the DPS website.
7 DPS schools close for the day
About 200 people picketed for four hours Monday, many of them staff or parents from seven schools the district closed due to staffing concerns:
Carrington Middle
Durham School of the Arts
Little River Elementary
Morehead Montessori
Sandy Ridge Elementary
E.K. Powe Elementary
Bethesda Elementary
They’re all different schools than the 12 that closed last week.
A district spokesperson said they are undecided on make-up days for any of the 19 schools. Remote learning was not an option for affected students.
Timeline: How we got to salary issues, protests and class disruptions in Durham schools
What the union wants
The union, whose membership has doubled since the start of the year, has three core demands:
Restore pay steps and commit to no pay cuts in February paychecks
Publicly explain why January checks did not look like people expected
Schedule a work session next week about giving DAE a seat at the table
Christy Patterson teaches exceptional children at Carrington Middle, one of the schools closed Monday. She said classified staff are the foundation of her school.
“As a teacher, I can’t run my classroom — that is at max capacity of 13 kids that all have special needs — without my four instructional assistants. I can’t teach them if they’re not there,” Patterson said. “They are the heart vessels that keep the heart pumping in DPS.”
Elizabeth Morrell is an instructional assistant at Morehead Montessori. Because she was hired Jan. 3, her pay was not affected.
Still, Morrell carried a sign Monday that said “End the supermajority in the state legislature.”
“Yeah, this is a DPS issue. Absolutely. The accounting errors, the promising. Sure, that’s gross incompetence within DPS,” she said.
“But what this is really a symptom of is a much bigger problem, which is defunding public education at the state level,” she said. “Republicans are actively trying to privatize education and defund public schools.”
Strikes since mid-January, when the pay cuts were announced, have affected bus routes and life inside schools. Classified staff include bus mechanics, cafeteria workers, instructional assistants and custodians.
Sandra Flores, a custodian for three years at E.K. Powe, was on her third day of missing work along with two of her coworkers.
The first two times they didn’t go to work was in support of a DPS staff walk-out when the pay disputes began.
“We’re in the struggle so that this can be resolved,” Flores said in Spanish. “The affected here are us because we have to do double the work, and students are also affected because the classrooms aren’t being cleaned properly.”
Flores described longstanding issues for her and other custodians, also immigrant women, such as working more hours without extra pay and being chronically understaffed.
“With the salary that we have, it’s difficult to survive,” she said. “We’re going to keep protesting. If support is still needed, we’re ready to keep supporting.”
Immigrant families among those affected
“It’s mostly we Hispanics who need the school buses,” said parent Reyna Laja, who attended the protest. “(School staff) are like our children’s mothers. The bus drivers too, they have a huge responsibility.”
Laja took time off from work as a food vendor to come protest Monday morning, since her son couldn’t attend Durham School of the Arts. She and others helped serve refreshments, including champurrado, a chocolately drink.
“That’s why I tell all of my people to support these protests,” Laja said in Spanish. “If we don’t support these protests, they’re not going to hear us.”
Patterson said she told all her families on Sunday that school would be closed. The district notified affected families Sunday afternoon.
Patterson said educators can’t do their jobs if they don’t know how they’re going to buy groceries.
“We are here because of our students,” she said, but added. “A teacher can’t get up in front of the classroom and teach a class full of students if she doesn’t know how her mortgage or rent is going to get paid the next month.”
Laja said schools remaining open is especially vital for Hispanic immigrant parents, who can’t afford child care or to take days off from work as easily as some other parents.
Monday was the first day her son couldn’t attend school because of DPS problems, but she recently had to take time off to take him to school when bus drivers did not show up for work in solidarity with classified workers.
Now Laja is worried that R.N. Harris Elementary School, which three of her children attend, might close because of the strikes as well.
“Who’s going to look out for our children?” she asked.
What is happening next
Kiddoo said more “school-based actions” are planned this week, but “nothing that would they will close down schools.”
She said they are looking forward to seeing what the school board decides. The board will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, a day before its previously planned next meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Despite spending more than five hours in a meeting on Friday, the Board of Education has not decided what will happen with February pay.
