Outsourcing Accountability

During their October session, the Springfield school board - with very little discussion - voted 6-1 to outsource our district's substitute teachers to Kelly Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: KELYA) beginning on January 14, 2008. With that vote, Springfield R-12 became the first public school district in Missouri to entrust a private vendor to train and hire classroom teachers.


SNEA spoke out against this outsourcing plan when it first appeared on the board agenda several months ago, pointing out that the district had never sought any meaningful measures to improve substitute services internally. Two under-paid clerical staff had run the office for years out of a corner of the Human Resources department, filling thousands of sub requests per year with remarkably few complaints from teachers or principals and compiling a very high "fill rate".

District administrators, in recommending shifting sub services to Kelly, pointed out that substitutes were offered only a brief orientation and were never really trained, yet there was little or no effort to seek a solution within our own district - a district that prides itself in possessing an award-winning Professional Development department. Kelly Services training consists of a handbook and web-based instruction through a Utah State University program, which is accessible to anybody with an internet connection.

Administrators also pointed out that substitutes would be provided benefits as employees of Kelly Services, something the district could not afford. The school board seemed content to accept this claim without question. Kelly Services lists these benefits as:

• Weekly Pay
• Direct Deposit
• Web-based Training
• Access to health benefits

First of all . . . can any of these items truly be considered a benefit? The district is already considering a change to 2-week pay periods and could implement it as early as next year. The district already offers direct deposit. Web-based training? Here's a link to Utah State University's Substitute Teaching Institute, which also includes the handbook. It takes about three minutes to register, but it costs $49.95 to buy the kit, which is required before you get your sub diploma. The site states that "your district may be willing to assist with this purchase". The health care "benefit" allows substitute to pay their way into a group health plan that most probably can't afford.


During the board presentation, it was stated that the outsourcing contract would have the district paying Kelly Services a relatively modest fee of approximately $50,000 to hire, train and administer sub services over and above the estimated cost of some $2.4 million the district pays each year.


On the surface - and that's all that was scratched in this agreement - $50,000 seems like an nominal fee to eliminate a department that would have required some thought and effort to improve. Exactly what steps Kelly Services, Inc. will take to increase their bottom line and please their shareholders is anybody's guess, but taking over an estimated $2.4 million project undoubtedly offers many opportunities. The district will receive regular invoices from Kelly beginning in January.

While we find this turn toward privatization of public education disturbing, what's even more alarming is how a school board - one that takes pride in seeking ways to achieve continuous improvement - can so effortlessly outsource a department that hires and places teachers in our classrooms to a private corporation . . . without offering so much as a probing question.