Pittsfield School Committee OKs Higher Custodial Wages

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The School Committee on Wednesday approved a memorandum of agreement with the district custodial union through 2025, bumping up senior custodians' hourly wages by over a dollar.  

The approval was unanimous with no public conversation after about an hour in executive session.  

The custodial union is represented by the Pittsfield Federation of School Employees, a local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. On Tuesday, the contracts was ratified by the federation.

A retroactive MOA for the 2021-2022 school/work year and for the 2022-2025 school/work years were approved. The 2021-2022 MOA is effective through July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

Starting wages ranged from $16.39 per hour to $20.73 per hour in the former contract depending on position and school.

Changes to the contract also included adding Juneteenth as a paid holiday, a requirement to develop a safety committee that addresses issues of employee and student safety, and the addition of gender-neutral pronouns when referencing a worker.  

All pronoun references were changed to "he/she," "him/her," "his/hers," and "they/them/their."

• Senior building custodians start between $20.08 and $22.39 per hour
• Night senior building custodians start at $20.27 and $21 per hour
• Senior storekeepers start at $21.07 per hour
• Working foremen start at $21.26 per hour
• Assistant groundskeepers start at $18.78 per hour
• Truck drivers start at $20.53 per hour
• Junior building custodians start at $16.95 per hour
• Mail couriers start at $16.88 per hour

In the 2022-2025 MOA:

For the 2022-2023 school/work year:

• Senior building custodians start between $21.07 and $23.49 per hour
• Night senior building custodians start at  $21.30 and $22.07 per hour
• Senior storekeepers start at $23.20 per hour
• Working foremen start at $22.35 per hour
• Assistant groundskeepers start at $19.74  per hour
• Truck drivers start at $21.58 per hour
• Junior building custodians start at $18.78 per hour
• Mail couriers start at $17.73 per hour

For the 2022-2025 school year, a 2 percent hourly raise is applied.

Last month, the committee approved MOAs for bus drivers and attendants, cafeteria workers, paraprofessionals, and educational secretaries.  

At that time, Chair William Cameron said he had hoped that "in very short order, we will have reached an amicable agreement with the custodial personnel so that all of the members of the Pittsfield Federation of School Employees will have new contracts, improved working conditions, and considerably better pay."
 

Lee Elementary School Holds Entrepreneur Fair

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
02:35PM / Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Fifth-grade students created potential businesses based on their interests. The entrepreneur fair is an outgrowth of author Ty Allan Jackson's 'Danny Dollar' series that teaches children financial literacy. 

LEE, Mass. — Hundreds of students gathered last week in the Lee Elementary School cafeteria for its first-ever entrepreneur fair. 

 

Over the last two months, the school's fifth graders have been introduced to financial literacy and developed their own businesses based on their interests. 

 

The students kicked off this endeavor toward the end of April, Financial Literacy Month, with the reading of Ty Allan Jackson's first book, "Danny Dollar,"  which he wrote while living in Pittsfield. The book's description says it teaches kids "about finance, banking, investing, and entrepreneurship in a fun and relatable way." 

 

The entrepreneur and author is the founder of the Danny Dollar Entrepreneur Fair, a program that teaches children life and financial literacy skills in collaboration with schools. 

 

Jackson and his buddy "Danny Dollar" flew in from California to admire the students' hard work. The kids flocked around Danny, giving him high-fives and hugs as they proudly showed him what they had developed. The students also received a free copy of Jackson's second book, "Make Your Own Money." 

 

As part of the program, the entrepreneur fair provides the schools with a template that includes its concept and curriculum. The teachers then cater that curriculum to the school's needs, Jackson said. 

 

"We really don't give them a lot of guidance. We kind of give them the format, and then we let them run with it," he said.