1st Place, News Analysis
2021-22, Division 3, News Writing
By Aidan Naughton
The Squall
Dexter HS
“If money isn’t everything, work at McDonald’s.”
That was a line by Jordan Belfort, better known as “The Wolf of Wall Street.
Today, in terms of support staff within school districts such as paraeducators, janitors, and bus drivers are able to make more money or make relatively the same amount of money, get better benefits, and have flexible hours at McDonald’s. Why might someone con-template working at McDonald’s compared to working for a school district?
In the middle of a worker shortage, schools across Michigan are struggling to hire janitors, bus drivers, and paraeducators. Dexter Community Schools has historically employed approximately 570 people but has seen a decrease in the past three to four years; the pandemic has made the situation worse. At one point, DCS Superintendent Dr. Chris Timmis said Dexter was short as many as 55 employees.
“When we used to hire for an elementary teaching position, we’d get 700 applicants. This summer, we got 25. There’s just not a pool of candidates,” Timmis said in an exclusive interview with The Squall.
One of the reasons why Dexter is struggling to hire people is because of “the big quit.” As Timmis explained, whenever a life changing event happens, people begin to rethink their lives. As a result, baby boomers have retired since 2020 and with millennials either employed or finishing college, fewer people are available to work in general. However, the education field is being hit hard.
“There’s only so many people that will work for a certain pay rate – pay rates that we can afford to maintain – who live within driving distance,” Timmis said.
Timmis did mention the state pension systems were slightly better than the private sector but that has changed. The State of Michigan does have different types of pension systems, but after the great recession the state changed how the pension system operated. Employees prior to the recession could get hired at a lower wage with a pension and benefits, but now employees get hired with lower wages and benefits, but certain positions require one to work an obscene number of hours in order to get the benefits. For example, a four-hour lunch room monitor has to work roughly 970 hours in a roughly 180-day school year to get a pension even though the school district still has to pay towards a pension for them which does not exist.
The educator shortage didn’t catch Timmis by surprise.
“There have been [shortages] for about 10 years; we were worried about a teacher shortage be-fore and then the pandemic hit,” Timmis said. “It just exacerbated the problem and I do believe it’s gonna get worse in the next two years.”
At one point over this past year, Dexter was short about 55 employees, so the administrators have been trying extremely hard to recruit and maintain employees. A red flag came this summer during the application window for an elementary teaching position where there were only 25 applicants compared to the normally 700 applicants.
As stealing teaching staff becomes less common, Timmis said the district has “actively cold-called people that we know that have the certifications for jobs. When someone says, ‘hey, I know this person,’ I’ll say ‘give me the number to call them.’ We bring them in for an interview where we’re doing everything you can do. We call the temp agencies, they laugh at us, because they don’t have anybody either. We’ve done all the LinkedIn, so we’ve done all the different online recruiting options.”
Additionally, Dexter Community Schools has multiple slides on the LED digital sign along Baker Rd. There also is a periodic advertisement that pops up when people visit the Dexter Community Schools website.
As schools and corporations in Washtenaw County struggle to hire employees, some may believe picking a job revolves around the wage and benefits, especially if the same position is open at two different locations.
In terms of custodial jobs, according to the DCS website and job posting descriptions, Dexter pays close to $2-$3 less per hour than many other local districts. Per the contract on the website, Dexter pays a total of 12.96 an hour with health insurance for a custodian.
“We don’t actually pay that, it’s just on our salary schedule,” Timmis said, adding that he doesn’t believe potential applicants look at the posted wage. “We don’t actually pay anyone that. We never start them there.”
Timmis said custodians make between $16-$18 per hour.
Dexter has also given recruitment bonuses to bus drivers, but the amount nor bonus was advertised compared to Ann Arbor Public Schools and Chelsea Community Schools. In terms of bus drivers, Dexter does pay on the higher side. Bus driver, paraeducators and janitorial salaries are deter-mined based upon years of employment which then correlates to a certain pay step. The pay scale is based upon union contracts.
There’s 10 steps in the salary, so there’s the starting pay step one, then you get a raise and then you’re at this rate,” Timmis said. “We’ve had people that have been here, they’re there on like step four, step five. We haven’t been able to hire anybody coming in less than say, step five, or six. We’ve moved [current employees] up who were below that so that we don’t hire someone that’s making more than someone that worked here. The salary adjustments, Timmis said, are one of the ways Dexter is trying to keep its employees..
In terms of wages, Chelsea, Dexter, Saline, Ann Arbor, and Brighton all pay relatively the same amount of money for custodians, bus drivers, and paraeducators. As shown in the graphs provided, a lot of the jobs are in the same pay range. However, Dexter and Ann Arbor has a unique aspect to the bus driver positions.
Ann Arbor bus drivers are paid and hired through a third-party company called Durham Transportation. That is part of the reason Ann Arbor bus drivers are paid $22.34. In comparison, Dexter bus drivers are started at $17.92 but they are provided with health insurance.
Many paraeducator jobs are paid in the same range, but Saline does list benefits for paraeducators. Other school districts did not have benefits listed for paraeducators. Some noted it was because paraeducators do not work enough hours to receive benefits as listed in the union contracts.
A paraeducator’s schedule, at least at DHS, involved arriving at 7:30 and staying until
around 3 p.m. Without a paid 30-minute lunch, that’s a seven-hour work day. Quick math would show that’s a 35-hour work week at about $13 and hour with no benefits. In contrast, the McDonald’s on both Zeeb Road and Baker Road are starting new employees at $15 hour and providing flexible schedules, health benefits, and tuition assistance.
“It has to always be enough that someone would be willing and is interested in doing the job, but just giving more money won’t make more people do the job,” Timmis said.
Has DCS considered using a third-party service to fill vacancies?
“They can’t find people either and it’s not something we’re interested in,” Timmis said in regards to the various third-party services that other districts have used for bus drivers, custodial staff, paraprofessionals and substitute teachers. Dexter does use Edu Staff, a third-party hiring company for substitute teachers in addition to the premier subs already on staff. However, Edu Staff’s pool of subs is dry, too, Timmis noted.
Despite the education system experiencing this major decrease in employment, Timmis sees it as a long-term fixable situation.
“We need to change the structure and how we operate,” Timmis said. “There’s no way we can continue to do everything we’ve done the same way we did it, know-ing how employment markets work, and how people are willing to work. We’re seeing the private sector. They’re trying to figure out what do remote work schedules look like? What do flexible schedules look like? We know with people that money is not the primary driver, but it has to be enough.”
NW-05. News Analysis
Stories should be interpretive in nature, not straight news stories. The elements “why” and “how” should be examined through research, but the writer’s opinions should not be expressed. An analysis covers issues and problems that relate to specific events of a news nature.
Judging Criteria
- Sharp, attention-getting lead that underscore the why/how elements of the news
- Clarifies the news elements, i.e. timeliness, nearness, impact and prominence
- Clarifies through research the background necessary to understand current news
- Develops an understanding of the issues/problems through interviews with varied and balanced sources
- Avoids personal opinion unless properly attributed
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length, written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Effective use of facts/quotes from both primary and secondary sources
- Proper diction/grammar; use of third person