Losing job to outsourcing hurts Southfield custodian
Don and Jill Wood pose in front of their Hazel Park home. "I don't want to lose my house," Jill Wood says, but she predicts foreclosure if she doesn't find a new job soon.
Editor’s note: Jill Wood had worked in the Southfield school district for 26 years when the school board fired her and hired an out-of-state contractor to do her work. She’s just one of more than 300 people victimized by outsourcing in Southfield this year. Wood agreed to share her story in hopes that it might educate others—school employees, school board members, administrators, legislators and the public—about what happens after the decision to privatize.
Despite losing her job and worrying that she’ll lose her house next, Jill Wood couldn’t let the magic of childhood end for her 8-year-old daughter Brianna.
On a recent day, Brianna came home from school with a small treasure box. Tucked inside was a tiny tooth. To be presented to the Tooth Fairy.
What she said when she showed her parents the tooth broke Jill Wood’s heart.
Jill Wood, who was fired from her job as a custodian in the Southfield school district, remains unemployed after the district outsourced her work. Wood's 8-year-old daughter drew a picture of a hotel on one of the signs Wood carried to protest outsourcing. "She said we'd move to a hotel when we lost our house," Wood said.
“I’m going to know if the Tooth Fairy’s real or not because if there’s no money, I’ll know it’s you and daddy,” Brianna said.
To say money is tight in the Wood home is to state the obvious.
With her job outsourced to a private company from Ohio, Jill Wood misses the security she had as a custodian for Southfield Public Schools. Even more, she misses the children.
“I loved the kids,” says Wood, who hasn’t found another job yet. “It was an exhilarating feeling to know that you’re a part of their everyday lives.”
Wood worked in the district 26 years. She started part-time when she was just 15, working in the kitchen. Eventually, she transitioned to a full-time job. When the school district ordered her and 84 other custodians, maintenance and warehouse workers to turn in their keys in June, she was the head day custodian at Levey Middle School.
In that position, Wood was a Jill-of-all trades, cleaning the lunchroom, mowing the lawn, changing filters on equipment, unsticking lockers.
For the four years she worked at the middle school, her efforts to beautify the school grounds did not go unnoticed. Her school was recognized in Southfield’s Community Pride Award program, thanks in part to the weekends Wood volunteered planting annuals and donated perennials.
She did other things, too. She gave lunch money to children who didn’t have any. When she was assigned to an elementary building, she washed the clothing of students who got sick during the school day.
“As a mother, I couldn’t let them take their dirty clothes home in a plastic bag,” Wood says, adding that the private company that’s doing her job now probably won’t do those “extras.”
Forced out of her job earlier than expected (her official last day was Aug. 11, though the district told Wood and her co-workers to leave in June), Wood hasn’t seen any jobs paying comparable wages.
As the primary wage earner in her household – at 64, her husband receives Social Security income, Wood worries about how they’re going to pay their mortgage and utility bills. She thinks they’ll probably lose their house and go bankrupt.
“I never would’ve thought public schools would do this to people,” Wood said.
Selling their $120,000 Hazel Park home isn’t realistic in the tight real estate market. Neighboring homes recently sold for $12,000 and $29,000. They’re planning to sell a truck and stacks of movies they love to watch. Jill Wood has enrolled in the No Worker Left Behind program, a Michigan effort that provides support for unemployed workers to learn new job skills.
Where Wood used to have a steady income, daily responsibilities and a purpose to her daily life, now much of the time she feels lost.
Between tears and gasps, Jill Wood worries more about the practicalities of unemployment, survival and her youngest child, Brianna.
“I’m not one to give up,” Wood said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I have good days and I have bad days. A lot of days, I feel useless.”
And, then, a reminder.
A tooth falls out.
The Tooth Fairy delivers a dollar bill for little Brianna, whose toothless grin serves as a reminder that all is not lost. Yet.