8 November 19 - December 2, 2021
LOCAL
Explore Big Sky
‘All hands on deck’ at local school district
As US reels from worker shortage, BSSD works to create solution for lack of custodial staff BY GABRIELLE GASSER BIG SKY – Sweeping the floor of the lunchroom in Lone Peak High School, Wayne McMinn greets two passing students who thank him for his work. The 70-year-old part-time custodian returns to sweeping but has to catch his breath before discussing what brought him to work for the Big Sky School District four years ago. McMinn explains that he retired from laying carpet for 50 years but still needs to work, so he drives buses and cleans the high school. BSSD has been advertising open custodial positions constantly, and in the last 16 months has received a few phone calls but no formal applicants, according to Superintendent Dustin Shipman. The district currently has three custodial employees: McMinn and Brad Lartigue who clean the school part-time and Kary Pemberton who was hired ahead of the 2021-2022 school year as facilities director to oversee custodial staff. Combined, McMinn and Lartigue work enough hours to equal about one full-time employee.
In the past, the two-building school has had as many as eight custodial employees who worked combined hours equivalent to four full-time employees. Shipman said the ideal would be four full-time custodial employees not counting the facilities director. The problem the school is facing is not unique. In the wake of the pandemic, which is still flaring up in Gallatin County, economists say a “web of overlapping factors” have contributed to a national worker shortage, according to an Oct. 19 New York Times article, in turn creating a “workers economy” which sees rising wages and employees empowered to be picky about what positions they take. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in October the national labor force participation rate for ages 25-54 rose nearly 2 percent from April 2020 to 81.7 percent, which is about 1 percent short of pre-pandemic numbers. “We don’t have any help but that’s the same thing we have all over the country,” McMinn told EBS.
Brad Lartigue makes his way down the hallway vacuuming the carpet and checking on the bathrooms. PHOTO BY GABRIELLE GASSER
