When it comes to school employees, most education coverage focuses on teachers, principals and superintendents. (Guilty!) In the last week, though, I’ve gained a renewed appreciation for the role of other school employees in making schools run smoothly.
Last month, 313 Oakland school secretaries, security officers, library clerks and other employees were told they’ll soon be laid off, demoted or reassigned to someone else’s job. It’s happening through a seniority-based “bumping” process that — because of its ripple effect — will affect most of the schools in the district in one way or another. No one I interviewed could remember this happening on such a large scale in Oakland.
I wrote a story about the people affected by the bumping process. It will be in tomorrow’s paper. You can find the online version
here.
