GLADSTONE - Although the Gladstone School Board has made no decisions regarding the privatization of janitorial services within the district, concern continues to grow. A Teamsters steward came to Monday's meeting armed with letters that included the signatures of over 1,000 community members, petitioning against privatization.
The Gladstone School District has been looking into privatized janitorial services as a way to save money. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) were issued, but the bids submitted did not provide enough detail of services to create an even comparison between vendors, or between private vendors and the current services. The board recently gave its approval to reissue new RFPs to hopefully gather more detailed information from the vendors.
The petition, which included 1,150 signatures from union employees and community members, was presented by Dan Bjorkquist, steward for transportation.
"I was told by two board members that they wanted to know what the public thought of this and we spent a month working hard to solicit those. They can all be read. It states that the public supports existing staff
we have in place," said Bjorkquist.
According to Bjorkquist, the Teamsters have expressed a willingness to make the concessions necessary to compete with private contractors, as long as the board made some sort of commitment in writing, alluding to the fact that the already skeptical union employees have grown even more wary due to recent events.
"We don't trust the verbal consensus of the board or of Mr. Kulbertis, if it's not in writing," he said. "It used to be like a family around here, and nowit's just not there."
Kulbertis explained privatizing services was something that had to be considered in light of the state funding cuts, but the board would be very diligent about gathering as much information as possible to make a fair comparison.
"We are spending as much time as necessary to get as close to perfect information as we can so that we make this comparison, and both sides can say, here's the target, it's reasonable, let's see how close we can get. I'm not saying we can reach that target, but we will make progress towards that target and come back to Curricular and Personnel Committee will make recommendation to the board so we can see what we can do to continue to maintain our current employment relationships with our Teamsters."
A few parents and community members in attendance offered statements of support for the Teamsters.
"My son has been in district since he was a small child, and I see a lot of the bus drivers here, and they've done a fantastic job and I hate to lose them as a parent," said one parent. "They've always been there for our kids. I would drive my son to school before I'd let somebody else I don't know drive them."
Gladstone is no longer pursuing privatized transportation services for next year, as the one bid was unresponsive.
The board has stated no decisions will be made until all the necessary information is gathered.
"We will do the very best we can to involve everyone in the decision-making process and make it as transparent as we can," Kulbertis later stated.
These unpopular discussions are occurring only weeks before Kulbertis' evaluation. A community survey was conducted to gather input regarding his performance as superintendent. Although the results of the survey have not been returned, O'Driscoll said he would try his best to get the results and have the board review them prior to the evaluation. Contractually, Kulbertis' evaluation must be completed by the beginning of March.
