To avoid layoffs, Wake reassigns hundreds of school employees to new temporary jobs
Hundreds of Wake County school cafeteria workers, school bus drivers and bus safety assistants will temporarily be reassigned to other jobs to keep them employed while schools are closed for face-to-face classes.
The reassigned Wake staff will help take care of children of other school employees, such as teachers who need someone to watch their kids while they are conducting the online classes.
Layoffs are still possible, especially among cafeteria workers, due to the sharp decline in meal revenue because of virtual classes.
“I think we’re all concerned and supportive about being able to keep our hourly folks employed because we will need them when we return,” school board member Bill Fletcher said at a budget committee meeting this week.
School districts around the state have been looking for ways to keep cafeteria workers and bus drivers employed since schools were initially closed for in-person instruction in mid-March to try to slow the spread of COVID-19.
More than 70% of the state’s public school students started the new school year this week with only online classes. Many school leaders, including those in Wake County, say it’s not yet safe to resume face-to-face classes.
Online classes hurting some employees
“We know there are some groups of employees who are directly and significantly impacted by the delay in students returning to our campuses this year,” A.J. Muttillo, Wake’s assistant superintendent for human resources, told the school board on Tuesday. “Many of these are child nutrition and transportation employees.
“In a regular year, our district could not operate without the hardworking employees in these critical roles who feed and transport our students every day.”
Wake is reassigning 550 child nutrition workers, 180 safety assistants and an undetermined number of bus drivers. Safety assistants help drivers transporting exceptional children who may have behavioral, physical or medical needs.
The reassigned workers will get jobs in the FAST program, a partnership of the school system and community groups to provide socially-distanced learning centers for children in kindergarten through sixth grade.
The school employees will work in the FAST programs based at schools to serve children of district employees. There are 2,800 children currently being served in those district schools.
Jennifer Decker, a child nutrition employee at Apex Friendship Middle School, said she’s happy to help out at the FAST program at her school after being told about the option by her principal.
“I’m glad they figured out a way to make it work budget wise,” Decker said. “I know this will help lots of WCPSS employees all around.”
Some employees may also get jobs helping schools meet new daily health screening requirements.
Keeping cafeteria workers employed a challenge
David Neter, Wake’s chief operating officer, said the district expects the bus drivers and safety assistants will go back to their normal duties once Wake resumes in-person classes. Wake won’t begin a system of having students rotate between one week of in-person classes and two weeks of remote learning before Oct. 22.
But Neter told school board members the challenge will be finding the $550,000 per week to pay the salaries and benefits for the 550 reassigned cafeteria workers. The child nutrition program is supposed to be self-supporting.
Normally, Neter said child nutrition would get $28 million to $30 million in revenue from meals between July and December. This year, they’re only projecting to get $7 million to $8 million during that time period.
Even when schools reopen, Neter noted that the majority of students will be attending Wake’s Virtual Academy and only one third of the remaining students will be on campus at any given time.
“It will be dynamic, it will be fluid,” Neter said. “We will continue to do everything we can to operate these programs effectively and retain the staff to the best of our capacity.”
School board members urged staff to do what it can to keep the workers employed.
“I agree with my colleagues and I know that you all share in understanding how important it is to maintain those employees for the sake of their well-being and also just how important their work is when we’re all in the buildings together,” said board member Heather Scott.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 1:08 PM.
