WCPSS employees and community allies are calling on the Board of Education and Board of Commissioners to work together to meet the urgent needs of our students and staff in the 2023-2024 budget. We recognize the extraordinary leadership of our CNS employees and Safety Assistants as well as the staff of West Cary Middle School, all of whom have fought for urgent improvements to create a better environment for themselves and their students and to enable our school communities to live fully into our vision of helping all students to thrive. These urgent needs have developed not by random chance, but because of the systematic underfunding of critical areas of the school budget, including pay for classified staff and funding for maintenance and operations.

Wages for classified staff have not kept up with inflation since the Great Recession, and remain significantly below the living wage for Wake County. The understaffing and high turnover in these positions affects all of us - from facing long lines in school cafeterias and hungry students in classrooms to waiting hours after school for students to be safely transported home, none of us can do our jobs and effectively meet students' needs when conditions for classified workers are dire.

In addition, many students and staff across the district show up to crumbling facilities and broken and outdated equipment on a daily basis. While some buildings are slated for renovations within the next few years, most of them are expected to wait upwards of ten years for major improvements, and in the meantime struggle to receive basic maintenance and repairs from the district due to a severe backlog of work orders. Teaching staff have spent years teaching in classrooms without functioning HVAC systems, safety assistants are required to stand for hours due to the lack of seating in their facility, and CNS employees are forced to prepare food without running hot water. Maintenance and operations for WCPSS are underfunded by nearly $20 million below the industry standard, and our students and staff cannot afford to wait any longer for facilities that meet basic standards of health, safety, and functionality.

As the Board of Education and Board of Commissioners formulate and approve a school budget for 2023-2024, we request that:

(1) The Board of Education prioritize significant increases to compensation for classified staff and funding for maintenance and operations in its budget request, including funding to meet the petition demands outlined below of WCPSS CNS employees, Safety Assistants, and West Cary Middle School parents and staff; and

(2) The Board of Commissioners vote to fully fund the budget proposed by the Board of Education.

We acknowledge these are far from the only issues facing our public schools, but we believe that we all stand to gain when these critical needs are addressed and continue to be properly funded year after year.

Provide a better working environment for CNS staff and more effective child nutrition services for students:

- Raise Classified Grade 17 to the Wake County Living Wage of $18.20 an hour, and raise each other classified grade $2.20 an hour to match.

- Pay CNS staff twice a month, as is normal in other food service jobs.

- Ensure appropriate training by training specialists for all new CNS staff and stop throwing new employees into their home cafeteria without sufficient and proper hands-on training.

- Ensure that comprehensive and preventative maintenance happens for our kitchens so that equipment is not constantly broken for months at a time, and hire enough technicians to get the work done in a timely fashion.

Create a better working environment for Safety Assistants and a safer transportation environment for our students:

- Change safety assistants' pay grade from 17 to 20, and provide safety assistants with the ability to telework and attendance bonuses twice a year, similar to how bus drivers receive them.

- Move safety assistants to a new, upgraded building in a central location, with more bathroom stalls and space to fit everyone, an office with a door for privacy for each team leader and operation manager, and a break room that can comfortably seat ALL safety assistants at the same time.

Prioritize a new building or the following improvements for West Cary Middle School to create a safe, healthy, and modern learning environment to support wellness and achievement for 21st century learners:

- To promote a safe learning environment: door locks updated as needed, enclosed breezeways to ensure safety of staff and students, athletic courts and fields resurfaced to ensure student safety.

- To promote a healthy school environment: HVAC systems are repaired or replaced, roofing is repaired or replaced, plumbing is repaired or updated.

- To promote a modern learning environment: dingy floors are replaced, cracks in walls sealed and walls professionally painted, classrooms are outfitted with working electrical outlets.