CREST HAVEN – Cape May County Technical School employees and their families pleaded with freeholders to contemplate the ramifications of potentially replacing custodial maintenance staff with a private firm, May 28.
Sharon Lee Kustra, a French teacher at the school, as well as the president of the Technical School’s local New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) unit, read a letter that she presented to the Technical School Board of Education at one of their meetings.
She said the school board authorized the advertising for bids for comprehensive facility services for custodial grounds maintenance management services.
She later noted that the 15 employees in the department, which includes maintenance, buildings and grounds, receiving, and daytime and nighttime custodians, received their non-renewal letters in May. “They are terminated June 30,” said Kustra.
In an email following the meeting, Dr. Nancy Hudanich, superintendent, stated that “the staff did not receive termination letters. They received a non-renewal of their one-year contracts that expire on June 30.”
When asked if the school board would table the action, or would they proceed with the vote at the next school board meeting June 25, Hudanich stated, “The (school) board is analyzing the bids and anticipates making a recommendation at a special (school) board meeting to be held June 4 at 3:30 p.m. in the Technical School’s Board Room.”
This “has come as quite a shock to the school staff, especially so close to the end of the academic school year,” Kustra said.
“The tech school is possibly the cleanest public school that I personally have ever encountered in this county and I’ve been teaching for 19 years… Our custodial staff makes this so. Further, their presence and most importantly, their well-honed student-oriented personalities … contribute to the well-being and the safety of our students on an ongoing basis…,” Kustra added.
With privatization, the school would experience degradation in cleanliness, Kustra said, as well as “a stream of new employees who do not buy into our school as our current staff, an unfriendly climate with faces that students and parents don’t recognize, and a time lag in the response and accomplishment of … emergency situations involving cleanup, setup or breakdown.”
“I just came from a (school) board meeting, the board meeting where we found the bids were already received, opened and were going to be discussed right now in executive session. So I pleaded again, we would like to work with our (school) board and find out what the issue at hand is,” she concluded.
Freeholder Will Morey, who oversees county education, said that he “learned of this maybe last week,” and spoke with the chairman of the school board May 28 to try to obtain some information.
“I don’t have a lot of information on this at this point,” said Morey. “My understanding was that the board was looking to study … the alternative, so I wasn’t aware that there was actually an RFP (request for proposals) put out at this point or there’s been any board activity…”
“I think we’re very interested in understanding the process, making sure that it’s balanced and fair, and trying to get a sense of what the district’s direction is. I don’t recall during our budget period that there was any discussion of this,” he continued.
“We do ask the district to provide their needs in a budget. There was not any discussion that I’m aware of, of this type of measure so I think it’s something that I’m interested in and concerned about and intend to follow up on,” Morey added. The Board of School Estimate March 26 approved $8.2 million of the district’s $16.1 million budget.
The school board is the governing body for the district, Morey said, “…nevertheless our support to the district is really important and I think it’s important for us to understand what is on the mind of the board and what the benefits are and what the detriments are and the like.”
NJEA representative, John Staab, told freeholders that the bid opening for custodial services was May 22. “What’s really alarming is they (custodial maintenance staff) were all fired prior to the bid opening, so the district didn’t even know if there was a savings and preemptively fired all the employees without giving an opportunity to work with the association. We have been asking to find out what’s going on and really we’re getting stonewalled.”
NJEA found that the school’s 2019-2020 budget included custodial maintenance staff salaries and benefits, according to Staab, “so what would be the purpose of doing this?”
Tech employee Keith Enteado presented freeholders with a petition his daughter started May 23. There were over 1,500 signatures as of 9 a.m. May 28, according to Enteado.
There was also a Facebook page started entitled, “Save Cape Tech.”
Several tech employees and their families spoke to the impacts privatization would have on them, including Ciaran McGreevy, 13, and Salvatore McGreevy, 12, whose father was unable to attend the meeting because he was working the night shift at the school.
“Without my father’s job, our lives will drastically change,” said Ciaran McGreevy. “We will not be able to play sports, my sister will not be able to get her braces, our mortgage will not be paid. We could lose our house. And why? For Cape May Tech to be cleaned by strangers who don’t know the students and don’t know the uniqueness of Cape May Tech.”
Salvatore McGreevy said that his dad comes home at 11:30 p.m. and then wakes up at 5 a.m. to take Salvatore and his siblings to school. “And then he does all that work for us to have a home, to play soccer, and any other sports we want to play, to go to school, to live in a nice house that we live in. And then you just get that taken away. I just think it’s wrong,” he continued.
Morey later said, “I’m very displeased to have this come upon us as it has. This is not the relationship we have with the Technical School. We’ve invested in the school in a very significant way.
“I think that the combined Board of Education has been beneficial to students. We have a good open dialogue and working relationships, so this is a disappointment to me and I’ll make sure that we discuss that,” he continued.
Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton agreed with Morey.
“I’m really surprised because we appropriated all the funding, so that kind of says ‘what the hell are you guys doing?’ … and for us to get caught off guard like this, it’s very disturbing to me,” said Thornton.
“And I’ve always had a lot of reservations over the years about privatization, and I’ll be candid about it and I’ll be candid with the school board because I’ve seen privatization where it’s very good for one or two years and then after that when you’re all gone, suddenly everything rises in order to get a new contract and everything else and then you’re really paying a price,” he continued.
Regarding privatization, Morey said, “…you want to understand how do current staff fit into that. Is there an opportunity for them to transition into that, so I’m not here to throw stones but … the notion of having non-hire letters at this point is disturbing.”
Hudanich clarified that “the board has not made any decisions at this time.”