L.A. Teachers Get No Help in Making Time for Jury Duty

It’s a standard classroom essay question: How did you spend your spring break?

Ask Los Angeles teachers the same question when they return to class next week and many will probably say they were on jury duty.

Although most government agencies give their employees unlimited paid time off to serve on juries, the Los Angeles Unified School District has a long-standing policy of requiring teachers to perform their civic duty on their own time.

Los Angeles Unified is the only one of the nation’s five largest districts to require teachers to serve as jurors on their winter, spring, summer or “off-track” vacations.

“I think it’s unfair,” said North Hills elementary school teacher Tamrah Wein, who was in Van Nuys Superior Court on Friday using accumulated sick time to perform jury service. “Everybody else here is getting paid for 10 days. I feel people should have a choice to do it during work and get paid for it.”

District policy misses an opportunity to teach students the importance of jury service, said Cara Schneider, a third-grade bilingual teacher at Cheremoya Avenue Elementary in Hollywood.

“All my kids are immigrants or their parents are immigrants,” said Schneider. “It would be a good educational experience for them to have their teacher serve on jury duty. It’s important for them to see they have a stake in their country.”

The Los Angeles teachers union doesn’t like the policy, either.

“It’s embarrassing,” said Steve Blazak, a spokesman for United Teachers-Los Angeles.

Under the labor contract, teachers who are summoned to jury duty during the school year must request a postponement until their next vacation.

Teachers are excused from the classroom only if they are selected as jurors during vacation and the trial continues into the school year. In that case, the district will pay up to 20 days into the school year.

“The district has no problem with people serving on juries. We just don’t want to have the instructional day or time interrupted,” said Los Angeles Unified spokesman Pat Spencer. “If a regular teacher’s not going to be there, then we have to call in a substitute, which is a fairly expensive process.”

New York, Chicago, Dade County, Fla., and Philadelphia, which with Los Angeles have the nation’s largest districts, provide paid leave for jury service during the school year. Some California districts, including San Diego, Santa Ana and Orange, do the same.

“We grant a [paid] leave of absence for anyone to serve if they’ve been summoned. We feel that it’s their civic duty and we don’t want to interfere with that,” said Neil McKinnon, assistant superintendent of the Orange Unified School District.

Kim Nissen, a former Los Angeles Unified teacher who now works at James Foster Elementary School in Saugus, said she applauds her Saugus Union School District for allowing teachers paid time off to serve.