By Steven Adamo
East Los Angeles College President Marvin Martinez and Vice Chancellor for Human Resources of Los Angeles Community College District Albert Roman visited the ELAC Child Development Center yesterday to answer questions about Assembly Bill No. 2160.
According to a letter sent out by the LACCD’s Human Resources department, the amendment of the Education Code includes part-time playground positions as part of the classified service.
“Most of us thought that the focus of the bill was primarily K-12,” Martinez said, “but the bill also included staff that worked on campus with children, in a setting like we have here in the Child Development Center.”
The bill, signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on September 18, is an act to amend sections of the Education Code to change part-time playground positions into Classified Service—employees that are not faculty or administrators, who go through the personnel commission to get hired.
The law also affects Child Development Centers within the eight other colleges in the LACCD, which is almost 500 staff according to Martinez.
The first step the district is taking in order to be in compliance of the new law is to end “at-will” employment status by January 1.
“‘At-will’ employment basically means I can have you today and let you go tomorrow… you have no rights to your position, you have no permanency,” Roman said.
Currently, employees of the Child Development Center are classified as “part-time playground specialists.”
Even though current employees’ duties go beyond monitoring playground activity, the bill considers it an “at-will” position.
The first step that current employees are encouraged to take is to apply online for a provisional position—a temporary position that lasts roughly four months.
The idea of the provisional position is so that current employees that are hired back can remain on the job temporarily until they are hired back as Classified Employees.
There’s no test for the provisional position, only the application, a high school diploma (or equivalent) and current transcripts are required.