CUPE 409’s Custodian Survey Report sent to SD40’s School Trustees for consideration in District Cleanliness Review

May, 2019 – CUPE 409 has shared a report with SD40 School Trustees on results of a custodian survey undertaken by the union in 2017 as a result of more than 16 years of chronic underfunding of the K-12 public education sector in British Columbia custodial services have taken the brunt of the cuts.

SD40’s District Cleanliness Review, undertaken to benchmark the current state and to offer supports and improvements, was presented at the April 30 Board of Education meeting. As part of the Review, CUPE 409’s president Marcel Marsolais sent the CUPE K – 12 Custodian survey results to the School Trustees and senior administration with a strong recommendation that all education stakeholders, including teachers and parents, (DPAC & PAC’S), students, be invited to participate in the District’s Review.

“Unfortunately, our recommendation was not considered,” says Brother Marsolais. “The only participants – other than custodians – were principals and vice principals. Since the cuts made to daytime custodian positions and cleaning time, principals and vice principals are often tasked with performing custodial duties they are not qualified to perform, and we have concerns responses in a survey like this may be influenced by the potential impacts on individual school budgets make in regards to restoring day custodians and increasing cleaning time to an acceptable level.”

Please find the CUPE survey results below:

Results_CUPEK12CustodianSurvey_2019

SD40CustodianSurveyResponses_2017

Read the minutes of the April 30, 2019, SD40 meeting here (report starts on p91).