She Feeds 600 Students a Day—and Still Can’t Afford Groceries
- Jan 12
- 3 min read
“The People Holding LAUSD Together”
A cafeteria worker explains why an 8% raise over three years feels like an insult, not a solution.
As SEIU Local 99 declares an impasse with LAUSD and a possible strike looms, the conversation has been reduced to percentages and projections. This series restores what’s been missing: the people. The workers whose labor keeps schools functioning—and whose wages no longer keep pace with survival.
By 5:30 a.m., Maria is already on her feet.
The school is quiet when she arrives—hallways echoing, lights half-on—but the work starts immediately. Breakfast trays don’t assemble themselves. Milk crates are heavy. Timelines are unforgiving. By the time the first bell rings, she’s fed hundreds of students, many of whom won’t eat another full meal that day.
Susanna Loeb — Education Economist, Stanford Graduate School of Education
“Underpaying school staff in a region where housing costs outpace wages is not just bad labor policy — it is bad education policy. Wages drive recruitment and retention, and when compensation fails basic cost-of-living tests, student access to stable, experienced support evaporates.”
Maria has worked for LAUSD for over a decade. She knows students by face, by habit, by hunger level. She knows which kids ask for seconds because they’re growing and which ask because dinner at home is uncertain.
What she doesn’t know is how much longer she can afford to keep doing this.
But, Something is shifting inside Los Angeles Unified School District, and it’s not subtle. SEIU Local 99—representing thousands of essential workers who keep schools open, safe, and functional—has officially declared an impasse in negotiations with LAUSD. That word alone lands like a gavel slam. Talks stalled. Patience exhausted. Lines being drawn.
Her paycheck barely clears rent on a shared apartment. Grocery prices rise faster than her wages. She skips meals so her own children don’t have to. When LAUSD offered an 8% raise spread across three years, she did the math. It didn’t add up to relief. It added up to falling further behind.
“People think this is easy work,” she says. “But if we don’t show up, the whole day collapses.”
Maria isn’t eager to strike. She’s scared to. Missing a paycheck is dangerous when you’re already living on the edge. But staying silent feels worse. Because silence tells the district she’s expendable.
She’s not asking to be rich. She’s asking to be stable. To feed students without wondering if she can feed herself.
Now the calendar is doing what calendars do best—adding pressure. with the possibility of a strike looming in January 2026. The message from union members is sharp and unfiltered: these are not “extra” workers. These are the workers. Cafeteria staff. Bus drivers. Special education aides. Custodians. Campus safety. The human infrastructure of public education.
Matthew A. Kraft — Economist of Education, Research Associate at NBER “You cannot engineer improved student outcomes with one hand while squeezing the people who deliver those outcomes with the other. Investment in educators and support staff is investment in the future, not discretionary spending.”
LAUSD’s annual budget is massive — nearly $6.4 billion in base and supplemental funding for 2024-25 alone — but most of that money is earmarked years in advance through California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). About 68.5 % of the general fund comes from LCFF dollars tied to enrollment and student needs, leaving tight margins and little flexible cash for priorities like staff wages.
Nationally, public education spending increased significantly post-pandemic, especially in staff salaries and benefits. California followed that trend, but rising benefit costs and enrollment fluctuations mean per-student dollars don’t translate into better pay on the ground. In LAUSD’s case, upgrades to benefits and pensions can swallow incremental revenue, leaving support staff wages stagnant in real purchasing power over time.
The workers facing a possible strike are not background characters in your child’s school day. They are the ones who unlock the gates before sunrise, who sweep up broken glass after vandalism, who calm frightened children when emotions spill over, who prepare meals for students who may not eat again until the next school day. They are the adults your children recognize by name, the ones who notice when something is wrong, the ones who step in before problems escalate.
Parents and residents must speak up now—before silence becomes damage. Attend rallies. Contact school board members. Ask where the money goes and who is being asked to sacrifice. Stand with the workers who stand watch over your children every day. Because caring for them is caring for your own.
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