Santa Ana’s newest teachers welcomed students back to school more than a month ago – but more than a hundred of them have yet to be paid.
At least 111 new teachers were not compensated on time and told they would have to wait until the end of September for a paycheck, according to Barbara Pearson, president of the Santa Ana Educators’ Association.
“You can’t not pay people who have been rendering services to the district,” Pearson said, adding that the number of unpaid teachers is likely much higher.
District officials blamed the paycheck foul-up on delays in processing new employees, partly because the district went through a hiring binge that added many new employees, and partly because human resources itself has fewer workers to process the new employees.
“We’re hiring extra staff but we’re also short on the people who hire staff. It’s a domino effect,” said district spokesman Fermin Leal.
“The District assures that these employees will be compensated for all days worked,” officials said in a statement Friday.
For now, the district has issued the teachers, who are paid once a month, $2,500 checks, Pearson said. Also awaiting additional stipends are some classified employees, such as instructional aides and clerks, whose overtime or new job classifications have yet to be processed.
On Aug. 16, Santa Ana Unified campuses reopened after 17 months of online learning. With new COVID-19 relief money, the district is lowering the student to teacher ratios and hiring new teachers, along with other employees. In all, the district hired more than 350 teachers, counselors, social workers and other employees.
But the district’s human resources department didn’t have enough personnel to process all the new hires in a short period of time. The department itself saw some people retire and others temporarily quarantine due to COVID-19, according to Leal.
The district’s teachers were due to get their first monthly paycheck on Aug. 31. That’s about when the phone started ringing at the Santa Ana Educators’ Association.
“All day, every day, for a week, we kept getting more calls and emails and we kept adding to the list,” Pearson said.
At first, the district officials told the union that the new teachers would have to wait until Sept. 30, the date of the next paycheck, according to Pearson.
Leal, the district spokesman, said that under the contract anyone hired after the 9th of the month might have to wait until the next pay cycle. But Pearson said that all the employees reached so far came aboard before Aug. 9 and should have received paychecks on Aug. 31.
The union filed a grievance on Aug. 31 and later filed a class-action grievance on behalf of all those who have yet to be paid or those not yet made whole.
The issue came to light Tuesday night when a teacher from Carr Intermediate, Shayna Lathus, called into a School Board meeting to say that the district’s newest teachers had not yet been paid.
“How on earth is this in any way acceptable?” she said.
School Board member John Palacio said Friday that until that call, he was not aware of the problem.
“District management has a responsibility to inform the school board when employees are not getting paid, why they are not and how they are going to immediately address the problem,” Palacio said.
“It’s illegal to not pay your employees,” he said.
The new teaching hires follow buyouts the district offered last year that resulted in 294 employees – including 156 teachers – who retired on July 1, according to Palacio. He criticized administrators for not moving earlier to fill any needed vacancies.
Another group – recently promoted classified employees, and classified employees who’ve worked overtime – also face payment issues. Many have not yet seen their extra pay because their new positions, or their overtime, have not been processed by the district’s human resources department, said Aaron Latham, a spokesman for the California School Employees Association.
During Tuesday’s board meeting, Palacio said that the district is taking up to three months to pay overtime, instead of when it’s due.
Latham said the local union chapter representing classified employees is working with Superintendent Jerry Almendarez to resolve that backlog.
“We appreciate that the district superintendent is working hard to resolve this and has reached out to the Orange County Department of Education for help,” Latham said Friday.
