Dear Editor,
Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Alan Nishino says in a June 11 Morgan Hill Times article that he is the only employee to have his increase on merit instead of longevity. He may be right about this. It takes classified workers five years of service to receive “longevity.” They work up from probation to step E. Then it takes five years to reach the next longevity step. They receive an evaluation each year, which must be satisfactory to move up. Sounds like the same thing to me, just a different way of saying it.
The problem is Nishino thinks he deserves his merit raise this year. At the same time he is trying to justify his increase to us, the public. He took the longevity away from the classified workers who work 10 months when they work summer school. It may not seem like much to Nishino to lose a few dollars per hour for a few weeks, but these are the lowest paid employees in the district that he has done this to. They are all good, loyal employees that have worked at these jobs for more than five years receiving satisfactory evaluations. This is supposed to save money, “but.” There always seems to be a “but.” At the same time he dropped the employees with longevity down to step E, he brought probationary steps A, B, C, and D up to E. This was a pay raise for some of them. Basically this tells all longtime employees he does not value them.
Maybe Nishino, all of his assistant superintendents and department heads would like to take a cut in their salaries, from the day school is out in June until school starts in August, at the same percentage rate lost by the most senior classified workers.
Is this why the school board thinks he has done such a wonderful job of saving money? Is this really how employees should be treated? I would like to know, in detail, exactly how he has saved money for the school district. How many other employees, and how many students has he affected?
All employees are equally important in making a school district run smoothly and make them safe and clean for students to learn. The differences in pay, from top to bottom, on the list of employees are set by contract when hired. After that, every employee should receive the same increase in pay and benefits. They are all equally important, from the superintendent to the lowest-paid classified employee.
Nishino has probably made many changes since he has been here. Some of them may have been good. This is one he should be ashamed of. And so should the school board for allowing it.
Peggy L. Speegle, Morgan Hill
