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Activism pays off for CDP teachers who worked extra
Tracey Matheny Thomas, teacher at Bret Harte Child Development Center, was among five CDP teachers who addressed the Board of Education about the augmented pay issue.Child Development Program (CDP) teachers earned a victory when Superintendent Ackerman directed CDP site managers to pay part time teachers who worked additional hours during summer at the per diem hourly rate.
At issue was whether those teachers should be paid the per diem or substitute pay rate. Tracey Matheney Thomas, part time teacher at Bret Harte CDC, started working additional summer hours on June 7, and assumed that she was to be earning the per diem pay rate. Working about 17 hours a week during the regular school year, but six to eight hours a day in summer, she explained, “I have always counted on per diem summer pay to get me through the year. For the ten years I’ve worked in SFUSD, that has been the practice.”
But on June 17, “The district changed this practice and directed site managers to pay part timers at substitute teacher rates for their extra hours,” according to Betty Robinson-Harris, CDP representative to UESF’s Executive Board.
Thomas and Robinson were among five CDP teachers and UESF members who addressed the Board of Education on this matter at its August 24 meeting. Joining them were Bertha Martinez, Maria Flynn, Rosalie Castillo, and UESF Executive VP, Linda Plack.
The district claimed that Article 27.5.1.2 allowed them to pay part time teachers who “volunteer to teach augmented hours” the substitute rate. However, UESF cited Article 27.5.1.1 which says that part time teachers who are “requested and directed to teach augmented hours be paid at the full-time teacher’s per diem pay rate…”Ackerman, in an August 27 memo acknowledged that the “change was made just as summer started because that was when the question of the contract’s application to augmented hours was first brought to Human Resources’ attention.” It came up because of information in the May issue of the San Francisco Educator.
SFUSD Labor Relations Officer Tom Ruiz said the district does not does not intend to pay per diem over the winter break. The basic issue remains unresolved in his mind.
