Recently in Schools K-12 Category

Source: ANNETTE KINGSBURY, Morning Sun (MI) Monday, August 23, 2010

When students return to Rochester Community Schools' three high schools this fall, they will find uniformed security guards from a private firm on duty instead of the usual hall monitors.

In August, the board of education approved the outsourcing of the hall monitor positions, awarding a contract to D.M. Burr Security Services of Novi. The district expects to save about $62,000 per year and gain a professional, trained security service.

Source: By Jackie Harrison-Martin, News Herald (MI), Tuesday, August 24, 2010

WOODHAVEN -- Custodians and maintenance workers are preparing buildings for the start of school now that a judge has blocked privatization of various services.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Michael Sapala issued a permanent injunction July 28 against the school district's plans to privatize those services and transportation.

..... About 60 transportation, custodial and maintenance workers are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.  First Student, based in Ohio, and GCA Services Group, based in Illinois, were set to come in and take over the duties of those employees.

Source: New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo news release, July 21, 2010

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced today a $20 million settlement with food services provider Sodexo for overcharging 21 New York school districts as well as the SUNY system.

An Attorney General investigation found that the company promised to provide goods at cost but failed to acknowledge rebates from suppliers, resulting in illegal overcharges to the schools. The investigation was sparked by former employees of Sodexo under the New York False Claims Act, which allows whistleblowers to come forward to disclose wrongdoing without fear of retribution. The settlement was unsealed in Federal Court in Massachusetts and is the largest monetary settlement under the Act that does not involve Medicaid funds.

Source: Cleaning & Maintenance Management, Tuesday, July 27, 2010

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ --  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the agency responsible for enforcing standards for workplace safety and health, has cited Sodexo for violations of nine separate safety hazards involving building cleaning and maintenance services that endangered workers and could have harmed students, according to a press release.

A supervisor within the South Plainfield School District alerted OSHA of these dangers, all of which were classified as "serious," meaning there was a "substantial probability that death or serious injury could occur from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known," the release stated.

Source: By MARTY STEMPNIAK, Wednesday Journal (IL), 7/20/2010 

The Village of Oak Park appears set to outsource elementary school crossing guards in a move that it says could save taxpayers about $141,000.

 ........The village's current crossing guards are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31. Calls to the crossing guards' union representative were not returned. Spataro said village officials planned to meet with AFSCME this week to see if the union wants to make a counter offer or negotiate anything else in the event of outsourcing.

Source: By James Pilcher, Enquirer (OH), July 20, 2010

Backed by the nation's largest transit unions, a fired bus driver from Oakland, Calif. Tuesday filed a class action lawsuit against downtown Cincinnati-based First Transit, saying the transit company's policy barring individuals with felony convictions is discriminatory against blacks and Hispanics and violates long-standing civil rights laws.

Experts say that the case could change hiring practices for all companies nationally whoever prevails, and could set major labor law precedent.

..... First Transit is a subsidiary of downtown-based First Group America, the nation's largest private provider of transit services for public city bus systems as well as public and private school districts, and also owns Greyhound Bus Lines.

...... The Amalgamated Transit Union says that the policy violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which states that employers can't base hiring on a past felony conviction if it would disproportionately impact minority groups.

Source: By Nick Anderson and Daniel de Vise, Washington Post, Wednesday, June 16, 2010; A02

The Obama administration proposed to tighten oversight of the booming for-profit sector of higher education on Tuesday, with rules that aim to curtail aggressive recruiting practices and that require schools to disclose graduation and job-placement rates to prospective students.

But in its notice of proposed rulemaking, the Education Department omitted a draft measure, under debate for several months, that would cut federal aid to those schools if graduates on average spend more than 8 percent of their starting salaries to repay loans.

Source: By Jackie Harrison-Martin, News Herald (MI) Tuesday, June 15, 2010

 "This is their worst fear, and this was our worst fear."

Those were the words of school board President Alvin Szczepaniak on the decision Wednesday by the Board of Education to privatize transportation and custodial/maintenance work in the district.

... First Student, based in Ohio, and GCA Services Group, based out of Illinois, will handle the transportation and custodial/maintenance services, respectively.

.... Smith said the bus drivers have been hired by the company at the same pay rate received through the district. However, many in transportation and custodial/maintenance will have to pay a portion of their health insurance.

Source: By Bill Bush, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH (OH), Tuesday, June 8, 2010  11:19 PM

Like a stubborn foreman with a hung jury, Columbus school board President Carol Perkins pushed her colleagues tonight to debate the details of a $14.2 million-a-year bus contract again and again.

..... That means First Student - the company that shut down the district for a day in 2007 after one of its drivers was caught with a cocaine-filled syringe - will be the sole private bus contractor for the district until 2013.

The company will not let the district down, said Roger Moore, First Student regional vice president, after winning the three-year contract on the 4-3 vote.

Source: By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and JENNIFER MEDINA, New York Times, May 25, 2010

ALBANY -- During its first years of operation, the Niagara Charter School in Niagara Falls spent thousands of dollars on plane tickets, restaurant meals and alcohol, and more than $100,000 on no-bid consulting contracts. Yet the school's teachers resorted to organizing a fund-raiser to buy playground equipment.

When the Roosevelt Children's Academy, a charter school on Long Island, fired its management company after paying it more than $1 million a year, it hired two of the school's board members as new managers -- and paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars.