The Education Funding Crisis
Privatization decision still hurts 1½ years later
Recent NLRB ruling, however, gives hope for Grand Rapids bus drivers.
Clare Hoover still feels the hurt 1½ years after losing a job she loved— serving as a bus driver for Grand Rapids Public Schools.
Her position, and the jobs of all other transportation employees in the district, was privatized to Lansing-based Dean Transportation.
“Still, to this day, it’s painful,” said Hoover, who spent 25 years driving a yellow school bus but refused to take a job with Dean.
Instead, she accepted a part-time position in the district’s food services department and continues to serve as secretary of the Grand Rapids Educational Support Personnel Association. She also works as a substitute bus driver in the Comstock Park school district to make ends meet.
“I loved my job, I loved working with kids,” Hoover said. “Gosh, I was driving kids whose parents rode my bus when they were children.”
The school board’s decision to out- source transportation jobs jolted bus drivers, who are still fighting the privatization in the legal arena. Some drivers chose to work for Dean for lower pay and benefits, and no retirement other than a 401k plan. Others, like Hoover, took other jobs.
For Hoover, not doing the job she loved had a lasting impact. “It was like a divorce—from the kids I’d been driving for years and from my colleagues who I had worked with for years.”
The ordeal affected her confidence for a while. It definitely affected her financial situation—she’s making about $10,000 less a year. “At times I was afraid to go into a store for fear that I’d buy something I couldn’t afford.”
Over the last 18 months, Hoover has adopted a new attitude. “It happened, I’m moving on, and there’s always another door that will open,” she said.
A door swung wide open this past October when an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Dean Transportation broke federal labor laws in dealing with the bus drivers.
One of the laws Dean broke was refusing to recognize the bus drivers employees union, the Grand Rapids ESPA, the MEA affiliate that has represented transportation workers in Grand Rapids since 1993, the ruling said.
The decision ordered Dean to notify its employees that the company broke the law and to inform them of their right to unionize and to choose representatives to bargain on their behalf.
Although Dean is appealing the decision, Hoover and many other bus drivers are heartened by the ruling.
“I got chills when I heard the decision,” Hoover said. “It’s a positive win and helps morale. We’re ready to sit down and bargain.”
The Grand Rapids school board’s 5-4 decision to privatize transportation jobs in 2005 still rankles Hoover. “We offered concessions in excess of what Dean said it could save the district, but the majority of the board was determined to go the privatization route,” she said. “And then the school board slapped us in the face again by refusing to support Proposal 5 in the November election.”
Jackson City ESP feel brunt of cost-cutting measures
You
don’t have to be an accountant to figure out that things just aren’t
adding up the way they should for Jackson ESP members.
The lack of adequate education funding has hit them hard.
In December 2004, they lost 57 members when the Jackson school board voted to privatize the jobs of the district’s custodial/maintenance staff.
That “in-the-dead-of-night” move still rankles, as Jackson administrators and prospective private contractors toured district school buildings between 1 and 3 in the morning to keep their intentions hidden from ESP staff and the public.
After the outsourcing occurred, the Jackson superintendent sent letters to other superintendents in Jackson County, declaring his happiness with the work of the private company and his willingness to share more information about the firm.
He should have checked with his own staff before sending the letter. Many of them didn’t share his delight with the private company, complaining about constant staff changes, buildings and grounds not kept clean and difficulty in getting repairs completed.
“So far, our support staff members have felt the brunt of budget cuts in our district,” said MEA/ESP Caucus Executive Board member Pam Faunce, a member of the Jackson City Secretaries Association. “We all have to be on the lookout for what’s going to happen next.”
Contract negotiations for her bargaining unit are progressing slowly this year.
“We already lost two paid work days, and we pay 7½ percent of our insurance premium, and they still want more,” she said.
In current bargaining, the Jackson dis- trict proposes that all ESP members pay 8½ percent of the insurance premium this school year and 10 percent next year. They also want members to forfeit five sick days (or the equivalent in vacation, holiday, personal or business days) in return for a 1 percent pay raise.
Needless to say, morale has taken a hit.
“How can they take more from us?” Faunce asks. “We should give more to keep our jobs? That’s just not right. They’re trying to put us in a hole.”
Jackson ESP leaders are working for and with members to become more cohesive.
“We’re active in the MEA Building Full Capacity Locals program to strengthen our local,” Faunce said. “We’ve started to do more social activities together. The goal is to become stronger, healthier and more unified as a group so we can successfully fight this.”
‘Everyone—students and staff—suffers with budget cuts’
Connie
Boylan recalls when a parent visited the Norris Elementary School Library in
Traverse City and declared:
“Oh, my God, I just love the smell of a library.”
That’s the feeling Boylan, a library parapro, hopes to instill in every student.
“We want to pass along our love for reading to all students,” said Boylan, president of the Traverse City Clerical, Assistants, Paraprofessionals and Secretarial Association.
“We want them to know how important reading is and to become so passionate about reading they will do it for pleasure, not just because they have to for school.”
Their jobs, and the work of other support staff in Traverse City schools, have been made more difficult with ongoing budget cuts, including $2 million this year alone.
That has meant reduced work hours for many ESP across the district while out-ofpocket expenses for health insurance have dramatically increased, even doubling for some.
“Our district has stated that it wants to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible and that hits our ESP,” Boylan said. “I say ESP are a critical component in the classroom—we service atrisk, Title I, special ed and ESL students; our libraries are the ultimate classroom where all students research, use technology and read—on their way to becoming lifelong learners.
“As employees and members of the community, these cuts have been dev- astating to our ESP. The reduced hours affect our salary, our benefits and our service credit for retirement.”
Still, the main concern for Boylan and other support staff is students. “We worry that the budget cuts will hinder our ability to provide service for the students and other staff,” she said. “We are all professionals, and our students will still receive our best effort, just on a more limited basis. In the end, though, we’re all affected by these reductions.”
District's behavior specialists bear extra load with budget cuts
Leroy Green, president of the
Kalamazoo City Behavior Specialists,
says school funding cuts have taken a toll
in the 10,200-student district.
“Our district has cut millions of dollars from the budget,” said Green, who has seen the number of behavior specialists in the district reduced.
“We’re being asked to provide the same services with fewer staff members.”
Lost with the staff cutbacks were years of experience dealing with students with behavior problems in order to maximize their achievement in the classroom.
“At one point, we had two Ph.D.s and two licensed social workers on our staff,” Green said. “Now, we’ve lost some of that experience and expertise. Luckily, we have dedicated employees who are going above and beyond to help our students.
“But to get the best results, to get students what they need so they’ll have the best opportunity to learn, requires funding as well as time and effort.”
Students take the direct hit to cover rising college costs
Donna Karsen worries that more and more “we’re putting the rising cost of going to college on the backs of our students.”
President of the St. Clair County Community College ESP local, Karsen sees the amount of state aid her college receives going down and the cost of tuition going up.
“We certainly don’t want to price ourselves out of business,” said Karsen, whose unit represents a wide range of support staff workers, from clerical to theater techs on the Port Huron campus.
“Right now, students are taking a direct hit.” Michigan’s education funding crisis has “a broad range of impact, from employees to students to families who have to come up with the extra money to pay for college,” she said.
St. Clair college employees “are holding our own” during the funding crisis, Karsen said. “The college isn’t hiring. We haven’t filled positions, or when we lose full-time employees, they’re replaced with a part-time employee working 20 to 30 hours. We’re trying to work through it.”
Voters will be asked to approve a millage renewal for the college at the end of February. “That will be critical,” Karsen said.
Remove burden from students who ‘add wealth to community’
The funding story at Grand Rapids
Community College is playing out
as it has in other higher education institutions
in Michigan.
“In the last five years, over $5 million was cut from the budget,” said MEA Board member Pam DeGryse, an ESP in the college’s Learning Academy for Faculty and Staff.
“Our college is growing, but we have the same number of staff, who must do more work” to serve a student population that now exceeds 15,000. “The make-up of our staff seems to be continually changing to make it leaner.”
DeGryse says students need relief from the rising cost of attending college.
“Community colleges are still the best buy in town—at Grand Rapids CC, we charge $73.50 a credit hour for resident students—but the at-risk students and single moms going here, the people who strengthen our community by furthering their education, need some financial relief,” she said.
“We need to fund community colleges at a higher level to lift the financial burden off these students so they can put extra time into their studies. These are the students who will add wealth to our community by getting a degree here or using it as a stepping stone to get a four-year degree. Then we would be successful.”
Midland teachers rally in support of ESP colleagues
When the Midland Board of Education talked about privatizing custodial/maintenance positions in the district last fall, teachers joined support staff in speaking out against the idea.
Jefferson Middle School math and science teacher Mark Hackbarth told the school board not to underestimate the value that custodial/maintenance workers bring to the district.
“Most people don’t realize how much they help students—these kids are always needing something—and how much help they give to teachers. We trust them and appreciate what they do for us and for students.”
Hackbarth listed three consequences the district will suffer with privatization.
“One, most of our support staff live in our community and many have kids in Midland Public Schools,” he told the Midland teachers rally in support of ESP colleagues board. “If they lose their jobs, they may have to move away to find work, and we would lose the per pupil funding amount to another district.”
Hackbarth also noted the quality of
work performed by the custodial-maintenance
employees. “They do a great job,”
he said. “They have a vested interest in
our schools. I question if workers from a
private company would have the same
vested interest and care about doing a
good job.”
The 16-year teacher also raised safety concerns with private company employees.“We don’t know these people, and we don’t know if they can be trusted around kids or around school equipment,” Hackbarth said. “That’s a worry. What control would we have over employees from a private company?”
Fred Baker, the UniServ director for the Midland City EA and ESP, said the
teachers
and support staff are part of the same
team working together for students.
In the end, Baker pointed out, privatization costs districts more because the companies must make a profit, and many of the privateers provide poor service.
“There’s also the unseen cost, the human factor,” Baker said. “Avoid the euphemisms. Don’t call it privatizing. Don’t call it outsourcing. You’re firing people.”