BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
At 6:30 on a cold dark weekday morning, Cathy Janson is squeezing out a mop and putting the sheen on a floor at J.F. Dulles Elementary School.
She has already been at work for two hours, sweeping, scrubbing and wiping, stopping only long enough to chug down a caffeine-rich soft drink and answer a page from one of her children.
By 10 that morning, she is in her van, heading into Oak Hills High School.
This time she's wearing an apron and making her way into a wide, bright cafeteria.
"Try putting 20 pizza pockets on one of those trays and see what it weighs," she says, knowing no one will take her up on the idea. By 1:45 p.m., lunch is far from her mind. Now she yanks open the door and watches the faces of children lumbering onto her Oak Hills school bus. Some complain about too much homework, some tease classmates and others "look like they just lost their last friend," Mrs. Janson says.
These are the kids with whom Cathy Janson strikes up a conversation. She knows that, some days, she may be the only adult who asks about their day.
Cathy Janson is a person of influence, touching hundreds of Oak Hills students' lives every day.
Still, chances are good she doesn't know just how valuable she is.
Worker shortage
School districts all over the Tristate are looking -- sometimes desperately -- for support staff, such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, crossing guards, custodians.
Some started the year with vacancies. Others find faithful staff members lured away mid-year by private employers offering better benefits, pay or hours.
The mildest rumor of a valued custodian or experienced bus driver departing can ruin a personnel director's day.
A strong economy is wreaking havoc on schools, pushing them into intense competition for good employees.
Substitute workers are the most critical need. This week at Lakota Schools, substitute bus drivers were in such short supply that the transportation director was next in line to fill in for an absent driver.
In response, some districts are encouraging employees to "double" or even "triple up," holding down several school positions as Cathy Janson is doing. Others are offering employment incentives or trying innovative recruitment tactics.
This fall, for example, elementary students in Princeton City Schools went home with fliers in their backpacks that asked parents to consider employment opportunities in the district.
Sycamore Community Schools asks staff members to recommend neighbors, relatives and friends as potential employees. Oak Hills contacted local fire stations for recent retirees who might be looking for a job, and lists openings in its newsletters to parents and on its Web site. Princeton sent applications to Gibson Greetings when the company laid off local workers.
Link to children
With a robust employment rate, nearly everyone is looking for workers, but schools face an especially pressing dilemma.
Children need to see familiar adult faces every day. Bus drivers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, custodians and educational aides give children an important sense of continuity, community and belonging.
"I can't go anywhere without someone knowing me," Cathy Janson says. "The kids going through the (cafeteria) line look up at me and say, "Hey, you drove my bus in elementary school.' "
"The thing that we're told as bus drivers is that, unfortunately, with so many working parents, the first adult most children will see in the morning is their bus driver," Mrs. Janson says.
"I think about that all the time."
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at the Enquirer, 312 Elm St. Cincinnati 45202.
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