About 100 members of the California School Employees Association took up picket signs and marched in front of the district offices before heading into an district board meeting to state their case. The local CSEA chapter has been in contract negotiations with the district since December; union members voted down the district's offer of a 2.4 percent cost-of-living adjustment.

According to CSEA chapter president Robin Hill, classified employees, who include clerical, maintenance and food-service workers, are being asked to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the district's increased health-care costs, since they're being asked to pay the same amount as administrative employees whose salaries are far greater. Classified employees who have been with the district for five years earn between $17,000 to $32,000, Hill added.

Hill said classified employees can apply their cost-of-living adjustment to their wages or to their health benefits. Because the amount district employees pay into their benefits has increased in the past three years, Hill said, association members have voted to use their cost-of-living adjustment to cover these costs.

"If we take it for wages, members would have to pay more than the COLA" to pay for their benefits, Hill told the Willow Glen Resident.

The CSEA is conducting a parity study within similar districts in California, said Hill, and preliminary results indicate that the amount San Jose district classified employees pay for health-care is over the median.

"To be fair to the district, it's a very rudimentary study," Hill added.

San Jose Unified School District spokeswoman Karen Fuqua said the district is trying to resolve the dispute before the next round of contract negotiations, which are scheduled for April 15. She said the cost-of-living adjustment offered to these employees is in keeping with the wage adjustment offered to other unions in the district apart from the teachers union.

Hill said the administrative union has been supportive of the association's position. "Board members understand what we want to say, which gives us hope," she added.

District board member Pam Foley, who represents Willow Glen schools, said she sympathizes with the classified employees and their needs.

"They don't get the respect they deserve," she said. "And I can appreciate their concerns about equality and parity. Often it is these individuals who provide the continuity of quality for the kids."