Santa Rosa student council members may be paid and may receive academic credit

Amid an ongoing budget crisis and strained labor negotiations in the Santa Rosa City Schools District, board members are proposing a new budget expense: to begin paying student council members.

The board has one student member: Omé Zuñíga, a graduate of Santa Rosa High School and son of administrator Alegría De La Cruz. If the policy is adopted, he would receive nearly $6,500 a year, along with academic credits.

The board hopes to add another student council member to the roster, doubling costs for the district.

“It’s great to have another student’s voice on the board,” Santa Rosa Teachers Association President Kathryn Howell said. “What is immediately concerning is the (salary) parity among students … the student (board member) certainly gives back to our community, but we have so many students who do.”

California’s state education code was recently amended to allow students who serve on a school board to be paid, receive academic credit, or both.

Howell agrees that students should receive credit for their contribution to the district, but worries about the impact on the district’s finances.

Board President Omar Medina is leading the charge on policy change. He said the most important aspect is the additional member of the student council, which can provide more representation, better reflect student voices and increase shared governance.

“A lot of the shared governance model in the district is primarily staff and unions,” Medina said. “There isn’t that much student voice. I think this is an opportunity to hear more from students and get more perspectives.”

Medina said the council is likely to make amendments to various aspects of the policy and continue discussions at the next council meeting before coming to a vote.

He proposes that student council members now receive academic credits and a monthly stipend. The exact parameters of student compensation have yet to be decided and may change based on discussions at tonight’s meeting.

As it stands, the plan would add one school board member east of the 101 freeway, providing representation for the entire city of Santa Rosa.

There are four schools on the east side (Santa Rosa High School, Ridgway High School, Montgomery High School, and Maria Carrillo High School) and two schools on the west side (Piner High School and Elsie Allen High School).

Howell feared that demarcating schools would be more divisive than unifying.

“There is an exacerbating concern — we all know that in Santa Rosa there is an east-side and west-side segregation,” Howell said. “Creating this as a policy seems to encourage that division, in a way.”

Given that background and the disparity in the number of schools on both sides of the 101 Freeway, Medina is considering a rotation among the district’s six schools.

“A lot of it is about making sure we have representation on the west side,” Medina said. “But two (schools) and four (schools) — there’s too much of an imbalance.”

Finally, the Teachers Association hopes the board will consider how the additional cost of paying student members will impact the district, which is already in a financial crisis.

“$13,000 is not a huge amount of money, but I’m on a budget advisory committee and we were talking about school consolidation,” Howell said. “It seems really tone-deaf that the board is proposing another budget expense — not to mention the ongoing classified dispute.”

Just outside the chamber’s chambers, Santa Rosa’s classified unit — made up of school custodians, cafeteria staff, lunch aides and teacher’s aides, to name a few — is expected to continue tonight to protest a impasse in negotiations with the district for staff increases.

The board blocked its raises until December at the earliest, citing the district’s “qualified status,” a label the state assigns when a district can’t afford the costs for the current year or the next two fiscal years.

A representative for the classified unit declined to comment on the proposed policy change.

Medina noted the district’s financial struggles and said the board would consider holding off on adopting the policy until the 2025-26 school year, when finances improve.

“I think the tax side was definitely a concern that we need to discuss and figure out what makes the most sense,” Medina said.

The proposed change to current board policy can be voted on at tonight’s 5 p.m. board meeting at Santa Rosa City Hall.

Trustees Ever Flores and Ed Sheffield will be absent from tonight’s meeting, and Trustee De La Cruz will have to recuse herself from the vote because student council member Zuñíga is her son.

For the updated policy to pass, all other trustees will need to make a unanimous decision.

Report For America staff member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. You can contact her at [email protected].