LAUSD LEAVES KIDS IN THE WAITING ROOM.

Byline: Linda Zavala Local View

IT seems that the Los Angeles Unified School District officials are not the only ``self-seeking'' people around.

United Teachers Los Angeles spokesman Steve Weingarten was quoted as saying ``that's their (district officials) standard operation procedure. They give the leftovers to the teachers and to the schools after they take the first grab,'' (``Wasting millions,'' Nov. 18).

How true that is, yet Weingarten is incorrect as to who gets the leftovers. His narrow opinion and sight applies only to teachers. But I thought the district included children as well as other union personnel. As is the usual case with UTLA, all they see or seem to care about is themselves.

I, too, could be as outraged and shocked by this district's self-serving officials, if I were naive to their wasteful ways of spending. As an employee with the LAUSD for more than 18 years it amazes me that people are still shocked by what the board and superintendents continue to do - and are allowed to do - with taxpayers' money. They waste our children's educational funds on themselves, their pleasures, their buddies or whatever new program strikes their fancy or puts more money into their pockets.

It is sad that for the sake of the almighty dollar, children are put in jeopardy every single day, and no one, including parents, seems to care. Maybe people are just unaware of what is going on.

Why has no one addressed the issue of the children who are put in the hands of unqualified, untrained employees every day in the district?

Yes, I hate to be the one to bring light to another fiasco of the LAUSD - I'm talking about the untrained office assistants and school administrative assistants.

Untrained? Yes! Untrained as health care assistants and nurses, yet they are substituted in these positions by the same people who want to furnish their offices with $7 million worth of furniture and carpeting, the same people who hire and then fire big-bucks bureaucrats who take our money and run.

Sorry, parents, your children are not worth the extra money to hire qualified health care assistants, much less nurses to care for them in our schools. Office assistants are cheap labor at $10.33 an hour.

At a recent area meeting, the school administrative assistants were told that Jaque-Anton Donnalyn, assistant superintendent of special education, was directed by Superintendent Roy Romer to cut special-education positions, including nurses, to save money.

And she cut. We lost a Health Office health care assistant, and no one bothered to tell us, a fact we found out quite by accident. The Nursing Office indicated that it was now the office staff who would take care of all the first aid - ``just like they do at other schools.''

Every day in schools all around Los Angeles, children are being given medications and are being treated by unqualified clerical staffers.

Why is this allowed? How much longer will it go on? Why does the public assume that the office staffs, from elementary to high schools, the majority being women, are trained in health care issues?

Office staffs dispense prescription medications - for example, Ritalin to ADD/ADHD children - check blood sugar levels of students with diabetes, give EPI-Pens shots, and put medications into Nebulizers for asthmatic children.

Clerical staffers are expected to diagnose anything from head lice to stomachaches and must administer first aid for injuries from scrapes to serious abrasions and broken bones.

We are not nurses or health care trainees. Many of us cannot stand the sight of blood, the smell of vomit, or having to remember to put on gloves every time we touch a child, taking them off to answer the phone, then putting on a new pair to continue working on the child. Having five kids lined up for their medications and having to remember which child gets what, all with absolutely no training. (What about malpractice insurance for office personnel, does it exist?)

Parents, just think for a moment: If your child got sick or hurt and you rushed him/her to the hospital and the doctor and nurses were not there, their positions having been cut to save money, but the receptionist is available (her skills costing less). She's busy answering phones, dealing with other sick children, typing the next newsletter announcing another fund-raiser, etc.

This is the person who is going to treat your child.

The receptionist will give your child their shot, give them medication, and attend to their illness or injury.

Are you going to trust your child to that receptionist? Why then do you trust the unqualified clerical staffers to treat your children in the schools?

This district will spend millions of dollars on another bureaucrat or two, needless new buildings, furniture that is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, their eye, yet cut essential money for the benefit of the safety of the children.

What's wrong with this picture? Where's the priority?

Yes, we would all love more money in our pockets. I would love a new desk and desperately need a new chair but at what cost?

Outrageous?

Shocked?

You bet!