THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994 TAG: 9406240216
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940626 LENGTH: Medium
Hal Canary, the school system's chief financial officer, said the custodial force will be reduced, from about 500 last year to about 460 full-time workers next school year. But all the reductions, he said, have been accomplished through attrition.
{REST} The only layoffs will come from among a force of 40-60 substitute custodians hired during the 1993-94 school year, said Canary. He said those workers knew their jobs were temporary.
``No custodians that are under contract with the school system will lose their jobs,'' said Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette.
School officials, looking to save money, contracted with Chicago-based ServiceMaster last September for $1.4 million. The company, which provides janitorial services to public and private schools and universities nationwide, has been under contract with Norfolk schools for five years.
ServiceMaster is eager to make the arrangement work, Faucette said, because the firm is seeking to expand in this area. To that end, the company has promised to treat the custodians well, to work with principals and to provide the top-quality cleaning service the school system always has expected.
But with fewer custodians to serve more school buildings - two new schools will open in the fall - some teachers and principals are concerned that there will be too few workers to tackle the job.
``They have been concerned, and we want to see that this is addressed, that in some cases in the elementary schools, there's only one custodian left in the daytime,'' said Lisa Guthrie, president of the Virginia Beach Education Association. The organization has seen its membership roster swell by 200 custodians this year, mostly due to concerns about ServiceMaster.
``Particularly in an elementary school, that custodian is used for a variety of things, not just traditional cleaning types of things, like mopping the floors,'' Guthrie said. ``They change lightbulbs, they move things, they pump gas'' for school buses.
``Maybe they shouldn't have been asked to do that. But there's no one else to do them. They've been leaned on so much that now teachers are wondering how those things are going to get done.''
Canary said that the school system, in effect, has a service guarantee: ``If they don't maintain the quality of the service, we won't maintain ServiceMaster.''
But, Faucette cautioned, that doesn't mean custodians will have time to provide all the services they traditionally have supplied, such as carrying teachers' books to their cars.
``Unfortunately - and I know this is the cruelest thing I'm going to say here tonight - we're running a business,'' he told the School Board Tuesday night. ``When you privatize something, you narrow the definition of the services provided.''
School officials have agreed to help custodians who are caused undue hardship by ServiceMaster's policies to promote efficiency. For example, the company has switched some workers from a day to night shift to accomplish more cleaning in less time - a move that has created problems for custodians with young children.
``Obviously they (ServiceMaster) are here to make money,'' she said. ``They're not here to make everybody feel good about custodians. That's up to the school system and the School Board.''
And the board must ensure that custodians have job security, and that the schools are safe and clean, Guthrie said.
``Those are our primary concerns.''
by CNB