School support staff are essential but underpaid

School funding is a hot topic these days in Pennsylvania. The school district where I work was one of the litigants in a historic case that has prompted our elected leaders to work on closing gaps between the richest and poorest districts.

That’s a very good thing. But as important as funding is, our public schools would be nothing without the amazing support staff who go to work every day to help kids across this state learn.

I’m talking about the folks like me who work in the school offices, along with the paraprofessionals who care for students and partner with teachers. There are cafeteria workers, bus drivers, personal care assistants, custodial staff, maintenance crews, IT staff, and speech-language pathologists. The list goes on.

When we talk about school funding, we should be talking about these people, too, and how much we pay them for their essential work. Because the truth is that too many school support staff aren’t making enough to get by.

More than half of nearly 5,800 school support staff (56%) surveyed by the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) last year reported that they were paid less than $20 an hour. Of those, 13% earned less than $15 an hour.

Among the lowest paid are the dedicated professionals who work directly with students, including food service employees ($17.09 an hour, on average), personal care assistants ($18.04), and instructional aides ($18.70).

Low pay has helped drive unprecedented shortages among school staff. It’s more than just a teacher shortage. It’s affecting support staff, too.

The PSEA has been advocating for more than a year for legislation to raise the pay of support staff statewide. At the start of 2024, the association came out strongly in favor of a proposal to pay support staff a living wage of at least $20 per hour.

It must be said that $20 an hour should be a minimum, and in some parts of the state, including Philadelphia and its suburbs, that hourly starting rate should be even higher in order to be competitive with jobs in other fields, such as delivery truck drivers or Target associates.

School support staff work hard and deserve to be paid a living wage. That is paramount. But we also must remember that support staff who earn enough to pay their bills and make ends meet will be more likely to stick with their jobs, providing our public school students with friendly and familiar faces year after year.

Paying a living wage will also show school support staff that Pennsylvanians see and value the important service they provide to our public school students. Let’s face it: Without these hardworking professionals, our schools would fall apart.

School support staff are an essential part of the school community, working to ensure the needs of the whole child are met. Bus drivers bring kids safely to school and back home at the end of the day. Cafeteria workers make sure students have healthy meals to keep them going through the school day. Custodians and maintenance staff keep school buildings and grounds safe and navigable.

I’m proud to be part of that team, working as a secretary for the past seven years in the front office at Penn Wood High School — Green Avenue Campus in Lansdowne. I work with some amazing colleagues throughout our school, but like most public schools in Pennsylvania, we have struggled with support staff shortages and high rates of turnover.

I do this work because it is so rewarding to see students learn and grow over the years, going from kids to teenagers to high school graduates. We are there supporting them every step of the way.

I am afraid of what will happen if we keep losing qualified, caring adults to jobs in other fields. What will that mean for the students I serve, and for students across Pennsylvania?

Let’s not find out. Instead, let’s take action. Encourage your state senator and representative to do the right thing by supporting legislation guaranteeing school support staff earn a living wage.

There are discussions about school funding happening right now at the highest levels of power in Harrisburg. Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed a budget that takes the first step in a seven-year plan to address inequities in Pennsylvania’s public school funding system.

Let’s also talk about how we will use those funds to pay school support staff a living wage.

Yura Commodore is a high school secretary in the William Penn School District and a member of the Pennsylvania State Education Association.