Schools told to reject privatization
Written by Alex Davis Sunday, April 29, 2012 01:00 am
Earlier this year, school board members began discussing such privatization, but nothing has been decided.
A little more than $105,600 is expected to be saved by privatizing teacher aides and bus aides, according to information from the district.
On Thursday, April 19, opponents say that removing aides from the school district would hurt the children.
"We provide them [students] with consistency and stability," a teacher aide at the school district said.
Several people said children should be the focus, not money.
“They [aides] don’t do it for the money. They do it because they love the children,” said Charlotte Sadler, a teacher from
One parent said aides have made a major improvement in her daughter’s life.
Her daughter had a behavioral problem in third and fourth grades, she said. Today, her daughter, who is a sophomore, is an honor-roll student.
“I was never notified,” she said of the privatization. She said a teacher shared the news with her, she said.
She worries what the next two years would bring for her daughter in
“And that’s not fair because is she going to have a good aide?” she said. She also questioned the quality of the substitute aides.
“My child should have the best education that she can have whether she’s special needs or not,” she said.
Perhaps the aides chosen from a company would be top-notch, a
“But it’s a chance I wouldn’t take with these students,” he said.
He told the Board of Education that gets its “$13,000 worth out of me.”
“I can’t do what I do without people that I work with,” said teacher Cyndi Dykhouse. “And if you have an outside company choosing the people to just come in and work with our students. And they’re not going to have the pay, the benefits. We’re not going to be able to service the kids and do what we need to do.”
A bus aide said a decision to outsource usually comes from employees not doing satisfactory work.
“And these people [aides] here are doing an excellent job,” he said. “I’ve seen it on the buses for the last five or six years. The students are getting a lot better behaved, a lot more educated, more respect for their elders.”
In the past, he wrote quite a few students up for misbehaving. Today, that’s not the case, he said.
One bus aide said the aides do more than “just sit on the bus.”
“On the way home, I read stories to the kids,” she said.
She said the students also sing songs on the bus. She cares for 4-year-olds.
The aide also said she gets involved with activities “because I love my job,” she said.
She also she serves as a one-on-one aide.
In March, privatizing part-time aides had been included as a cost-saving measure in a school board budget presentation. That's also when the board approved a zero-tax increase budget; the general fund totals $41.5 million.
“It's [privatizing is] a fluid issue at this point. We are open to how we can perhaps find some middle ground to make this work,” said school board member Stephanie Thomas. "So don't think the board has closed their minds to viable options that could be presented to us."
District Superintendent Michael Kopakowski said the Board of Education has not made the move to privatizing teacher aides and bus aides. A request for proposals would be needed and then a contract awarded.
“What you’re seeing in this year’s budget is a direct result of what happens when the governor and the legislature passes laws that limit our tax increase to a 2-percent increase,” Kopakowski said. “This is what happens. This is the negative impact that legislation such as that has on the education of children.”
A 2-percent increase would bring about $450,000 in local revenue to the district, he said.
“I can tell you that in tuition alone from Stone Harbor, Avalon and Dennis Township we will lose that amount of money next year due to decreased enrollment in those school districts,” Kopakowski said. “So going into making up the budget, our Board of Education was faced with – that’s a wash. So now where do we go?”
Stone Harbor, Avalon and Dennis Township students attend Middle Township High School and pay Middle Township Board of Education a per-student tuition.
Full-time aides would still work as Middle Township School District employees, indicated school board vice president Dennis Roberts.
According to Kopakowski, there are about 49 part-time teacher aides and 13 part-time bus aides. He could not provide a count of substitute aides.
“At no time, in whatever proposal is put before the board, in this matter, will this Board of Education or this superintendent or this administration give up control of who works with our children,” Kopakowski said. “That will never be proposed.”
So many people attended the Thursday meeting that it had to be moved to Middle Township Elementary School No. 1 instead of the district’s administration building.
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