Why central Ohio school districts struggle to hire aides, bus drivers and other workers

COLUMBUS, Ohio ( WCMH ) – Public school districts in central Ohio are facing an epidemic of support staff vacancies, but union representatives say there are just a handful of factors contributing to the openings.

These vacancies have been making headlines . In August, Columbus City Schools announced new exceptions allowing them to declare charter and private school students who previously received transportation from CCS as “transportation impractical,” leaving many families without busing services and leading to a lawsuit from the state . In Pickerington, parents told NBC4 a lack of one-on-one paraprofessionals for students with special needs is making them lose trust in the district.

Joie Moore, who is on the Board of Directors for the Ohio Education Association, serves as the president of Pickerington Support Staff Association and is the vice chair of the Ohio Association of Education Support Professionals. She said the top two factors she sees contributing to support staff burnout are low salaries and a lack of respect from district leadership.

“Most of your support staff, like your (paraprofessionals), your aides, your custodians, your secretary or office assistant – most of them work two to three jobs to support their family,” Moore said.

According to data from the Ohio Department of Education, the average salary in 2023 for a food service worker was $20,194. The average 2023 salary for an instructional paraprofessional assignment was $25,023, and the average salary last year for a bus driver was $24,427. According to MIT’s living wage calculator, one adult in Columbus must make $43,593 before taxes to afford to live in the city.

Every public school district in Franklin County has job listings for some sort of special education or student support position. Reynoldsburg lists 18, each starting between $16 and $17 an hour. Executive Director of Communications and Outreach for Reynoldsburg Valerie Wunder said the openings address changing district needs and added the pay is comparable to other districts.

“We have completed negotiations with our union, and once the agreement has been voted on and approved by our Board of Education, we anticipate these positions will see a salary increase of $2-3 per hour,” Wunder said.

However, these support positions are paid hourly, and the listings specify they will work between two and eight hours a day, typically over 184 days. Even if a professional was working the maximum eight hours with the anticipated salary increase, they would still only make around $30,000 annually.

Lois Carson, state president of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, said she frequently sees districts neglect to account for these positions in their financial forecasts. Now, with so many openings, she said districts have begun competing with one another through signing or retention bonuses.

Moore said oftentimes these policies result in newly hired employees receiving higher pay or better benefits than those who have been there for a while, spurring frustration.

“They’re getting paid less or right at the same amount as somebody who is just starting, and they’ve been with the district for 10, 15, 20 years,” Moore said.

These vacancies aren’t limited to education. Jenny Hanna’s daughter is nonverbal, and has autism and Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that makes everyday activities dangerous without supervision. She said her family should be receiving several hours of at-home state support each week, but they are not.

“We haven’t been able to work with the state to find somebody to actually hire for four years,” Hanna said. “The wage is so low that there is no staff. There is a work shortage. This is bigger than (school districts).”

“Having enough direct support professionals has been a top priority across the state,” Allie O’Neal, communications director for the Department of Developmental Disabilities, said. “With recent investments, average wages have gone from $11.12 per hour to an expected average of at least $18. The job remains number one on Ohio’s Top Jobs list .”

According to data from the DoDD, the turnover rate of people working in these roles was 52% in 2022, with 35% of those who leave doing so in their first three months of employment. Ohio’s Top Jobs list notes the role as a median salary of $27,000 a year.

“It’s the pay, it’s a lack of respect that they receive from the districts,” Carson said. “It’s the lack of appreciation. It’s not an easy field to go into anymore.”

Moore said getting that respect is just as key for retention. She said it’s noticed in interactions and policies, such as a Pickerington policy that does not offer families or estates severance if a support professional dies unexpectedly, unlike other staff positions in the district.

“ESPs are the first ones in our buildings and our last ones out. We open the schools, we close them,” Moore said. “Nobody at the higher level understands what a one-to-one para does. Their biggest thing is just respect from our higher ups within our district … to understand what we do and what we go through and how much we love our students.”

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