Central Bucks School District support staff call for better wages amid contract negotiations

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The employees who answer phones, clean classrooms, assist students with special needs and keep the Central Bucks School District running say they can no longer afford to do the work they love without better pay.

Those concerns were front and center Thursday night as workers and their supporters pressed the school board for better wages before their contract expires June 30.

The Central Bucks Education Support Professionals Association has more than 1,000 union members, including administrative staff, custodial employees, nurses, paraprofessionals and security guards. Earlier this month, members voted to authorize a strike in the event that an agreement is not reached by the June 30 deadline.

“We are the ones handling the most intense emotional situations. We are the ones in the trenches of special education, managing classrooms when things get chaotic and ensuring that classrooms run smoothly every single day,” said Carlos Siderio, a personal care assistant at Holicong Middle School.

“We are the glue holding the system together,” he continued. “We have been called the backbone of the district, but while we are holding this district together, the backbone is severely damaged. We are struggling to pay our own bills. We are working second and third jobs just to make ends meet and to come to work to do what we love. We are facing difficult, unpredictable working conditions that change without notice.”

Siderio said he and other support staff union members are asking for safe working conditions, livable wages “and the respect we have earned through our sweat and our dedication.”

Cara Alderfer, an elementary art educator and president of the Central Bucks Education Association, the union for teachers and educational staff, said the district has “struggled to maintain continuity with support in our classrooms, while staff members leave to find districts that pay more for the work they do.”

She urged Central Bucks to pay “fair living wages” for support staff, who have been stretched thin by shortages.

Board member Karen Smith thanked speakers at Thursday’s meeting for sharing their thoughts, and said she has been attending the negotiation sessions and understands that support staff are “frustrated.”

“You may feel that I don’t value your work. I just want to say that is not the case. I know that your work is invaluable,” she said.

“The work requires me to place our employees in a numerical box,” she added. “It’s a spreadsheet cell. The numbers are inflexible, they’re rigid, they’re unyielding, and I have to take your work, which is sensitive, empathetic, caring, invaluable — everything that we’ve been hearing for the last few months, and assign it a value and a number, and honestly, it just doesn’t fit. It’s really difficult.”