Privatization News
The Reed City story:
Vigilance keeps privatization at bay
Like
a lot of moms, Barbara Wolverton
volunteered in her kids’ schools. She
spent so much time at school when her
five children were young, in fact, that she
landed on the payroll.
“I was there so much, they decided they
better hire me,” jokes Wolverton, who has
spent the past 21 years working in the Reed
City Area Public Schools as a paraprofessional.
Because Wolverton is so personally
invested in the school district, she was concerned
when officials decided to investigate
hiring outsiders to perform custodial and
maintenance work and to take over the
food service operations.
She worried that out-of-town vendors wouldn’t provide the same level of service and that the workers would essentially be strangers to the students, staff and community.
As president of the Reed City Educational
Support Personnel Association, Wolverton
swung into action to fight the attack on her
colleagues and members.
“Privatization only hurts the community,”
says Wolverton, who faced the privatization
threat in her first year as a local president in
the fall of 2005. “Our district employees live
in the district. They support the schools and
their taxes support the schools. When you
start outsourcing, you don’t get that.”
The group operated on a shoestring budget. They posted hand-made signs—created
by custodians and food service workers in
Wolverton’s garage—in yards and businesses
around their small town, located
between Big Rapids and Cadillac.
“There wasn’t anything fancy about it,” says MEA UniServ director Pat Bolen.
“They just got their message out.”
Local members picketed at two school
board meetings, informed neighbors and
other community members about the problems
associated with privatization, and effectively
communicated the value that they
bring to the school system.
“This privatization threat was about taking away jobs from our friends and neighbors and sending them outside our community,” Bolen said.
Reed City ESP members were job shadowed by the private companies, who observed the school employees’ work so that they could put together bids.
Though several bids were submitted to the district for the custodial and food service work, community support for the employees forced the board to abandon its privatization attempt after about two months.
“I guess the school board thought we were just going to sit back and take it,” Wolverton says. “When you’re dealing with people’s lives… we take that seriously. The board was very shocked by our reaction.”
More than a year after the initial privatization threat, local members continue their vigilance. They attend school board meetings. They talk with administrators to monitor their concerns and ideas. They continue to work with community members to keep them posted about district goings-on. They try to work with the district to resolve staffing needs.
And while they haven’t faced additional attempts to privatize, some members have lost their jobs as the school board opted to lay off employees. In two years, the local association lost 26 members through layoffs across all job classifications, Wolverton said.
“We just deal with one situation at a time,” she said.