It was a bad night Monday for the lowest paid employees of the Wayland Union school district.
The Board 
of Education unanimously denied all six grievances filed by food service workers and appeared to be unmoved by a last gasp effort to spare some classroom and playground aides from reduced hours that mean no health care benefits.
Michigan Education Association Uniserv Director Tom Greig earlier this spring outlined six grievances from employees in the food service department. The grievances were that overtime pay was miscalculated, there was misuse and shortage of substitutes and non-posting of positions significantly different from previous jobs, district’s increasing use of a third party for food service and concessions at athletic events, reducing employee hours on half days without 30 days prior notice, an
d food service employees being required to provide extra meals for catering during regular work hours.
All six grievances had been denied by Wayland Superintendent Norm Taylor.
The board’s action prompted food service employee Sharon Penning to say, “It just makes us feel underappreciated… We are part of the process of education, not like a teacher, but if the kids are not well fed, they won’t perform well.”
She insisted that the food service department didn’t have problems like these in past years.
Former board member Jeff Salisbury, quoting Strother Martin in the movie “Cool Hand Luke,” told the board, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
Salisbury asked, “How did these grievances get to this level?”
He noted that the board is the third level for grievances, which first are handled by the department head, then the superintendent.
Representing classroom aides, union President Jan Goodwin once again pleaded with the board and administration not to continue reducing aides’ working hours just to avoid having to pay for their health care.
“Though I haven’t heard from everyone,” she said, “our district is up to 71 percent of aides under 30 hours per week. I had a letter ready to mail to you (each board member), thinking you were still in the decision-making process, but after hearing you chose an option at a work session and learning about cuts to aides last week, it appears that Item 9C on the agenda is just a formality.”
Goodwin has been bringing the aides’ case to the board during the entire academic year.
“In the classroom as educators and in the office dealing with student behavior, we need more staff not less,” she contended.
She noted five aides, all with 18-plus years in the system, will retire this year and can be replaced by entry-level employees, thereby saving the schools more than $13,500 just through attrition.
She concluded, “Does the administration have a direct impact on students at Dorr, Pine Street and the middle school, like the nine aides currently working on reading and math? I think not.
“Can the administration cover the special needs cuts to the aides who provide direct services daily to the EI (emotionally impaired) and CI (cognitively impaired) students in our district? I think not.
“I share this information with you, our elected representatives of the students, parents and staff, to make a decision that is best for the students and avoid any further cuts to support staff. We have four administrators whose annual incomes exceed $100,000. We have more personnel in the administrative office who have been added in recent years. Please find another avenue to make reductions in our 2015-16 budget.”
