40% of L.A. School Police Start Sickout Over Contract

About 40% of the 320 Los Angeles Unified School District police officers staged the first day of an expected two-day sickout Thursday, complaining that they have worked without a contract for two years and are unnecessarily placed in danger because of outdated communications equipment.

The sickout, which union leaders said was independently organized and would continue today, left 44 high schools and middle schools without on-site officers. But district officials said a scramble to increase the frequency of patrols left no campus unprotected.

The officers’ absence at the 101 schools where police are assigned did not increase incidents, and as of midday all calls had been answered, District Police Chief Wesley Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he called some school district officers back from vacation and shifted some detectives and supervisors to patrol duty. Los Angeles police officers and county sheriff’s deputies were also alerted, he said.

At Franklin High School in Highland Park, the assigned officer did not show up Thursday. “It’s always a plus whenever we have an officer walking the corridors, but we made some adjustments,” said Assistant Principal Omar Del Cueto. “We have counselors walking the hallways.”

Dick Keith of the Police Officers Assn., the officers’ union, said the two-year contract dispute proves that the district refuses to recognize the department’s mission of maintaining the safety of students.

He charged that district police must communicate on a 20-year-old radio system that can leave an officer abandoned in the field.

“We have a radio system that’s going to get an officer killed one of these days,” Keith said. “We had an officer who needed assistance dealing with gang members, and he had to put in a quarter in a pay phone to call for help. He couldn’t get through on the radio.”

Chief Mitchell acknowledged that twice officers were forced to use pay phones for assistance calls. One incident resulted from a radio relay problem, he said, and the other was a case of the officer using the wrong frequency. He said that a communications upgrade is being reviewed but that the current system remains sound.

“The union is dramatizing the radio problem,” he said. “We’re making the system as reliable as possible. But I’m realistic that there’s a possibility it could break down, just like I could go home tonight and there could be problems with my phone line.”

District police officers and officials are scheduled to resume contract negotiations next week. The officers, who earn about $33,000 a year, are not demanding more pay but are seeking more flexible vacation time.

Current rules require district police to take most vacations during the schools’ summer and winter breaks. Such rules keep more officers on hand during days when the greatest number of campuses are in session, district officials say.

Mitchell said the school district could decide after reviewing individual cases not to compensate the officers for the staged sick day.