District Administration - August 2007 - (Page 50)

OUTS INSand BY JENNIFER MACIEJEWSKI PRIVATIZING. CONTRACTING OUT. Out-tasking. Outsourcing. No matter what it’s called, one thing is certain: Attempts to cut costs or improve eﬃciencies by hiring private companies to manage and perform your district’s support services, from custodial and food service to transportation and substitute teachers, will likely face loud and swift opposition. After all, from the district employees whose jobs are in question, to the teachers’ union representatives who oppose attempts to privatize the public school system, everyone has a stake in the decision and will ﬁght to protect their positions—even if it means taking the district to court. Before opening up districts to potential litigation, administrators and school board members must carefully weigh the pros and cons of outsourcing, which is often not as easy as it appears. Countless 50 August 2007 private vendors are clamoring for a piece of the $134 billion support services pie, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and administrators must separate sales pitch fact from ﬁction. Multiple Applications “As an outsource service provider, it’s really about custom designing the program to match the district’s needs,” says Steven Weiser, regional vice president of Aramark, which provides food service and facility support management services to more than 600 school districts nationwide. “That can range from short-term consulting services to a long-term, full outsourcing model where all the people, the resources and the budget are transferred to Aramark.” Some districts, like Murphy School District, a four-school district in Phoenix, Ariz., resist outsourcing basic support services because they want to remain in charge of the quality of work performed by the custodial, food services, maintenance and transportation departments, and they want to ensure the positions are ﬁlled by people in the community. But Murphy Superintendent Paul B. Mohr Jr. concedes he turns to private companies to ﬁnd qualiﬁed personnel for hard-toﬁll positions, including school nurses and special education teachers who work with students with severe disabilities. In the rapidly growing suburbs of northwest Chicago, transportation problems plague Community Unit School District 300 in Carpentersville, Ill. Six years ago, bus drivers picked up any students oﬀ the street and asked where they needed to go to school because the routes were so poorly managed. “It was almost like a private taxi service,” recalls Superintendent Kenneth Arndt. “Another year, District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - August 2007

Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Technology Update
Curriculum Update
Inside the Law
Research Corner
Computer Literature
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Bus Money
DIBELS Draws Doers & Doubters
Report from EduComm 2007
Ins and Outs of Outsourcing
Curriculum Clearance
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Products
Problem Solution
Online Edge
Speaking Out
Professional Opinion
Calendar of Events
Understanding the Times

District Administration - August 2007