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Employees and parents press Desert Sands board to reclassify administrative assistant roles
Summary
Multiple administrative assistants and parents asked the board to reclassify elementary and middle school administrative assistants to administrative specialist roles, citing expanded duties, increased site budgets, and decades without reclassification; a union representative asked the board to approve a negotiated MOU covering many job descriptions.
Several district employees and community members urged the Desert Sands Unified board to reconsider a decision denying reclassification of elementary and middle school administrative assistant (AA) positions.
Elizabeth Zamora, who identified herself as requesting reclassification, told the board that AAs at smaller sites perform many duties comparable to administrative specialists — including budget monitoring, requisitions and audit-trail maintenance — and asked the district to reclassify those positions to reflect current responsibilities. "To ensure internal equity, I propose administrative assistant to administrative specialist range 80, 11-month contract," she said in her written comment read into the record.
Multiple commenters (including Claudia Lopez, Blanca Nuno and Juliana Rodriguez) described years of increased financial responsibilities at elementary and middle sites and said prior requests in 2021–24 were not approved. Nuno provided budget figures to demonstrate the larger workloads at some schools, saying a site's allocated budget had grown from $384,178 in 2007 to $1,099,927 in 2026.
Karen Miller and others argued the role has evolved to include accounting technician duties and asked the board to reconsider placement on the salary schedule.
Andrew Barra, speaking in person as a union representative, summarized an MOU covering reclassification and position adjustments that took about 18 months of negotiations and affects over 200 members and approximately 28 job descriptions. Barra asked for board support in approving the MOU.
Board staff indicated the MOU related items were on the agenda for approval; the board later approved grouped consent and personnel items, and multiple motions recorded during the meeting carried as documented in the meeting record.
The board did not debate specific reclassification appeals on the public-record comments beyond acknowledging the requests; staff and trustees said they would follow up and provide further information, including which sites may have funding or differences in support resources.
Next step: the board approved a reclassification/position-adjustment MOU (on the consent agenda) and staff agreed to provide additional documentation to trustees about site-level support and funding breakdowns.
