Aides allege BOE discrimination

Classroom aides and lunchroom monitors in the Malverne school district are sick of working without sick days, vacation time and, most important, respect.

“We feel like we’re treated like some old has-been housewives from, like, the 1950s and it’s really ridiculous,” said Bianca Donnelly, president of the Malverne Association of Classroom Aides and Monitors. “We feel discriminated against also. Like we’re not deserving of anything.”

The 3-year-old union has made little progress in contract negotiations with the Board of Education throughout the last two years, and its members are now fed up. They claim to always meet with refusal when at the bargaining table, despite adjusting their proposal numerous times.

But schools Superintendent Dr. James Hunderfund said the board did come close to settling a contract at one point, but the bargaining unit was not ready to sign the offer. “Then the board felt it had gone as far as [it] could with what I considered to be a very legitimate offer to settle their contract,” he said. “You know, you need two parties to agree and the union leadership did not agree.”

As a result, the two parties brought in a mediator and recently entered the fact-finding stage.

While Hunderfund does not view the negotiations process as contentious, Donnelly insisted the 65 or so MACAM members are being treated unfairly. While they get minimal raises — usually about 25 cents an hour — annually, classroom aides and monitors do not get sick days, snow days, holidays or vacation time.

“When school’s closed, we get zip,” said Donnelly, a Malverne resident who has worked in the district for nine years. “We want to be treated fairly. We want to be treated, actually, the same as … our surrounding school districts.”

According to Donnelly’s research, most school districts in the immediate region — including West Hempstead, Lynbrook and Rockville Centre — have contracts with their aides and monitors unions. “We want to be heard and recognized and compensated,” Donnelly said. “We feel like we’re just being ignored.”

Hunderfund insisted the board responded to all the issues brought before it during negotiations. “The board had tried to meet halfway, tried to meet the unit with a reasonable offer,” he said. “In the end it fell apart because the unit did not feel that the offer was good enough.”

Additionally, Hunderfund said, the matter is strictly business.

“No one’s disrespecting, no one has anything but great respect. Anybody who’s negotiating always feels like they’re in some way disrespected because they don’t get the settlement that they want,” he said. “But the board has to take into consideration the economic conditions. ...And they’re just doing what they think is the responsible approach.”

He went to say, “It’s not an emotional situation. It simply comes down to two parties trying to agree on a list of terms and conditions and benefits that may not be the same list.”

Donnelly, who works in the Maurice W. Downing Primary School, and her union mates believe the matter is personal on some level, and they want all members of the school community to know how they feel.

“We’ve all been there so many years. We’re such reliable and loyal people to the district and to the community,” she said. “[The board members] treat us like, ‘Oh, they can be replaced at any time,’ but that’s not really the case. Not too many people in this day and age are going to work for what we work for.”

Fact-finding is expected to last at least a month, if not longer. In the meantime, the board is still in the process of negotiating contracts with its teachers’ and chairpersons’ units.

“Everyone feels badly that someone feels badly,” Hunderfund said. “It just requires more patience.”