A nearby district is having a rally tomorrow night to protest their school board's decision to outsource secretaries and assistants...I've read of other schools outsourcing custodians. Has this happened near you? In your school? What are your thoughts on this?
I don't know about the assistants, but the secretarial positions probably to an office/temp/clerical kind of agency...
Some schools in our area use Lunchtime Solutions. BLECH. They take bad school lunch to a whole new stratosphere.
Wow. I had never heard of this before and not I'm quite sure what I think of it, though I am leaning towards the not-so-fond-of-it side.
I seriously can't imagine how many school secretaries we would go through! I don't think that anyone who goes into those agencies thinks that they will be getting a school secretary job... my bet is they go in thinking they'll get into a less demanding office where they will have to answer phones and send emails.
My district outsources to Sodexo for cafeteria and custodians. Which is funny becuase several corporate offices also do this around here and the quality of the work being done/food being made is FAR superior at the corporations then at the schools.
I've never seen that happen. I used to work in the corporate office of a temp agency. The schools/districts would pay the agency fees on top of the temp's salary-which would be what a regular secretary/custodian would make. I'm not sure that would financially even make sense. Most businesses that use temps do it more as a hiring process. They will pay a fee to hire the person full out. What's the benefit of doing it that way?
A district near me is outsourcing all non-certified jobs. I am expecting to hear about all the chaos I expect will occur.
In my area, it is very common to outsource for school lunches and custodians. I've noticed a major decline in custodial responsibilities (cleanliness of buildings, trash, etc.) when schools outsource those jobs. Sodexo is alright, but the PP was very right when saying the quality of their food is very, very different when supplying food for trainings and corporate versus school lunch. Understandable, but very different.
As a parent, I'm a whole lot more comfortable having the same people in the school every day. It's a whole lot easier for a young child to identify a person he sees every day, as opposed to one who was in his building for a solitary day.
I agree and even for us as teachers, custodians are going through our rooms every day. I trust ours implicitly, but a different person all the time......
I've worked in some schools that I'm pretty sure would fall apart if not for the secretaries. My mom is a retired elementary school secretary and I'm still amazed at how much patience she demonstrated to be able to handle the demands of the principal, the teachers, the students, the parents, as well as all of the other administrative stuff and a colleague that was out at least once a week so she either had to do 2 jobs or try to teach a substitute secretary how to do stuff. I think there's also a reason why in all the schools I've worked in, the secretaries have been there longer than most anyone else in the school and also seem to really love being part of the school community.
I don't think it's a good idea. My district is outsourcing most therapists just because of the difficulty in recruiting them. In that circumstance, I think it's okay.
It has been discussed in our district, but hasn't happened yet. It is a way they look at to save money by not having to pay any benefits to school employees.
I have to wonder if the outsourced secretaries and custodians would have to undergo the fingerprinting and background check that we must go through. I would not feel safe with people I do not know. I agree with Betty. The secretary and custodian are the heartbeat of the school. There are days that I would be lost if the secretary was not there to point me in the right direction!
They obviously would. You can't work in any schools anymore where you don't have to do a background check/finger printing. Even volunteers have to.
in our school - we outsourced the custodial positions a couple of years ago. we were very against it as a staff because we were loyal to our custodians, but I have to honestly say that they new service cleans my room better than it has ever been cleaned. so, that is the good part, for us.
Our district has outsourced some of its custodial positions with very mixed results. There have been a few good workers, a few more who didn't show regularly, and a few who didn't follow our regulations. The big negative is that you don't know who you are hiring - that is totally up to the agency.
My district outsources custodians. It is hard to get to know them because they change every few months. OP, will the people who are currently in these positions lose their job, or will they start the outsourcing to fill only new openings? I don't think it's fair for those already employed to lose their positions for a cheaper temp. I understand districts have to do something for budget cuts, but (in my area anyway) classified staff such as secretaries, don't earn that much, even after 15 plus years. The secretary is probably the most important person keeping the school running---it's not worth the headache to get a brand-new one to start at the bottom of the pay scale!
I couldn't imagine going to work and not seeing the same secretary's face each year. She makes the school! And the same goes for the custodians.
A district close to me just nonrenewed the custodial company and are going to hire their own custodians.
There are 3 schools in my district that uses an outside agency for assistants. I believe the school district pays their salary and the agency covers their benefits. My school is one of the schools that uses this outside agency. They come with their own supervisors that are supposed to be working under our principal but "don't". Some of their assistants are unqualified and 'unteachable'. Some of them cross the personal relationship boundaries with the students and b/c a lot of them worked in group homes they have difficulty discerning between appropriate interactions in a group home vs. a school. I've had students arrive to my guided reading group on the shoulders of assistants. My principal could suggest an assistant be removed but he does not have final say. I can tell you we (the teachers) were all hoping that the agency wouldn't renew their contract with the district last year, but they did...
