> vast majority of the cost is hiring teachers

My 1,500-student public California high school currently lists 7 administration-team members (principal, executive assistant, three assistant principals, school-facilities manager and food-services manager) and 11 administrative-support members (school data-processing specialist, print-center technician, senior-clerical assistant, separate registrar and attendance roles, interventions-support specialist, and others). That doesn't include 4 site maintenance, a network-support and a separate network-systems specialists; a separate media-library specialist; 2 psychologists; a college and career advisor; 4 school counselors; a wellness-space support specialist; and a social science and an athletic director.

34 administrative hires. One per 44 students. Many of those roles strike me as fluff.

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lostlogin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

One of the key problems with schools is that everyone thinks they can run them better because they went to school once and have an idea.

If we left it to domain experts and got politicians to back off, it would be neat to see what educators could achieve.

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thelock85 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s because there are tons of laws and regulations regarding minors in school, and administration tends to be homegrown (initial expertise in teaching) rather than explicitly developed to navigate the social, political and legal landscape. I’d wager that more than half of those positions are “best practice” staffing decisions in response to this landscape. A handful might also be due to expressed needs and wants of parents. Likely wasteful overall, but students, teachers and families would likely feel the impact and not be satisfied if any positions were axed.

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aiiane 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Which of those roles specifically would you say are fluff?

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JumpCrisscross 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Which of those roles specifically would you say are fluff?

Food-services manager (it's all oursourced to Aramark), data-processing specialist, print-center technician, senior clerical assistant, one of registrar or attendance, two of site maintenance, one of the network specialists (probably both–one across the district is plenty), and probably at least one of the counselors and the separate social science & athletics person, who should just be one of the physical education teachers. That's about ten people, or a million dollars–minimum–in annual savings.

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aiiane 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Someone still has to coordinate with Aramark.

Data-processing specialist and print-center technician both sound like fancy names for secretarial roles.

You're honestly saying schools need fewer counselors in what has been generally regarded as the worst generation for child mental health in years?

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fhn 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Bring food same time everyday? Here's a weekly food menu, repeat weekly? Whew, that's a lot of work. Email me if you need me. I'll be in Hawaii.

Counselors aren't qualified to deal with mental illness.

	▲	estearum 44 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		you can tell this is someone who hasn't been in an operations role^ and sure, counselors aren't qualified to deal with mental illness but what exactly do you believe is a child's path to qualified help if their parents are unengaged or the source of the problems?

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JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Someone still has to coordinate with Aramark

As a full-time position? Aramark literally ran the lunch counters. I could see it being a district-level position, though it would be better positioned as a general procurement role.

> Data-processing specialist and print-center technician both sound like fancy names for secretarial roles

I agree. I was suspicious when I didn't see a secretary for each of the assistant principals listed.

> You're honestly saying schools need fewer counselors in what has been generally regarded as the worst generation for child mental health in years?

I am. Unless the counselors are constantly doing actual therapy I'm deeply sceptical you need that many for a student body of that size. The fact that they're assigned based on the first letter of your last name versus anything remotely thematic or behaviour based seems to emphasise that hypothesis, for me at least.

(When I went to the school, there were bullshit jobs everywhere. One of the counselors didn't deign to meet with students. Her role was "strategic" or some nonsense.)

	▲	Joker_vD 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> One of the counselors didn't deign to meet with students. Why would she? That'd distract her from the actually important work of fabricating the reports that make her looking amazingly competent. My mom is a retired teacher and her main complaint during the last 10-15 years of work was that with all the bullshit paperwork they're required to fill, the teachers literally don't have the time to just plain interact with the students. You want to make an odd, unscheduled extracurricular event? Waste a small pile of paper before organizing it, arguing for how amazing it will be for the students' education, and the an even larger pile of paper afterwards, bluntly telling just how amazing it all worked out and checked some tick boxes the upper management cares about.

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Joker_vD 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Someone still has to coordinate with Aramark.

The deputy principal for the administrative and provisioning work, whatever it's called in English? The superintendent?

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nxm 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can some of the roles be done by fewer individuals? Do you really think there's 0 waste in ever growing schools administrative staff?