Six Local 372 members from Community School District 19's Reach Out Drug Program in Brooklyn, who worked long hours to save school kids from drug abuse, have finally won the full legal pay for their efforts.

The Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention Specialists worked beyond 40 hours a week traveling around the country on several overnight field trips.

"We had to go to Chicago, Atlanta and even Canada," said Iris Pabon, a 17-year veteran SAPIS II in District 19.

Instead of paying SAPIS workers in cash for the overtime they worked, as required by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the union contract, the Board of Education gave SAPIS employees only compensatory time. Management also required all SAPIS employees to sign waivers giving up their right to cash compensation for the hours above 40 each week.

The members informed Local 372, and the local brought in the DC 37 Legal Dept. Union attorney Leonard Polletta threatened to go to court, and in 1999, the BOE agreed to pay all District 19 SAPIS employees in cash for the overtime they worked in 1997 and 1998.

But the board still refused to pay for the overtime that the members worked in 1996.

Six SAPIS employees - Tomas Quintana, Marie Smith, Jeanie Ashe, Patricia Mitchem, Leatrice Henry-Gilbert and Ms. Pabon - then decided to file a federal court suit against the school system for refusing to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act. They alleged that the board's refusal to pay them in cash for 1996 overtime was willful.