Secretaries at some Waukegan Community Unit School District 60’s elementary and middle schools are concerned they cannot properly do their jobs while sitting at a security vestibule detached from the main office. School officials say they can.
Differences of opinion became public Monday night when Linda Unda, the president of WPSS IFT 504, the support staff union, told the District 60 Board of Education the situation needed to change. She said the support staff should not be doing its work in the vestibules.
“We strongly believe this work should be done by security personnel,” she said during the board meeting. “The nature of this work requires security and crisis training, and performing high-level background checks.”
The support staff union filed a complaint against District 60 with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board Tuesday in Chicago, claiming school officials implemented changes to working conditions without fairly bargaining for them.
Of the district’s 15 elementary and five middle schools, seven have security vestibules detached from the main office. There, visitors enter a first set of doors, and are screened before they can go into the main part of the school through a second set of doors.
In the other 13 schools, visitors like parents or others who have business there, go immediately into the main office, where support staff screen the individuals and let them continue into the rest of the building.
District 60 Superintendent Theresa Plascencia said after the board meeting, that she has visited the seven buildings in question and in the overwhelming majority of situations the staff is satisfied with the conditions.
Though Unda said the vestibules in the seven buildings should be staffed with security personnel rather than support staff, Plascencia said they are not part of elementary school staffing.
“It is the clerical staff’s job description that they greet our parents and assist them with their needs,” she said.
Unda said greeting visitors at the vestibules diminishes the contact the secretaries have with parents, and it is making it harder for them to do their jobs in other ways. The answer is using security personnel.
“This is a safety issue,” she said. “Our staff are exceptional at their jobs, but this is not work that we were hired or trained to do. That makes us concerned, not just for ourselves but for our students and anyone else in our buildings.”
First learning of the change putting some support staff at the vestibules just before the start of the school year in August, union officials informed the district the change violated the union contract, according to the complaint.
After the union made its collective bargaining demand, district officials unilaterally placed support staff in the vestibules, according to the complaint. The union alleges there have not been good-faith negotiations.
Plascencia said her administration is bargaining in good faith with the union and will continue to do so.
“We have been in discussions with the union,” she said. “We have a difference of opinion of where we are.”
With the negotiations ongoing, Unda said the affected secretaries are taken away from the work they are required to do as part of their jobs while they are in the main office. No change should take place until bargaining is complete, she said.
“At the very least, our secretaries should be able to work in their regular stations in the main office areas while it’s being resolved,” Unda said. “Instead, we’ve been ignored and disrespected.”
