How do we recruit, train, and retain strong classified staff – the paraprofessionals, bus drivers, custodians, and nutrition service workers – as a core student-success strategy, not an afterthought squeezed in after the budget for teachers is settled?
Every superintendent I know can rattle off graduation rates, but ask them how many classified positions are vacant on a Tuesday morning, and the answer gets quieter. That silence tells you something.
As public schools entered the 2024 – 2025 school year, staffing difficulty extended well beyond classroom teachers into transportation, custodial, and nutrition roles, with many districts operating short every single day (Institute of Education Sciences, 2024).
Those vacancies are not abstractions. They show up as a bus route that runs forty minutes late, a cafeteria line that backs into the hallway, a paraprofessional pulled to cover three classrooms instead of supporting the one student who needs her most.
Here is where many districts go wrong, and it rarely starts with the paycheck. Central office often treats classified recruitment as a transactional fill-the-seat exercise; post the opening, interview whoever applies, hand over a badge, and hope the person figures it out.
No onboarding sequence mirrors what new teachers receive, no mentor assigned, no clear picture of how the role connects to a child’s day. When that employee leaves eight months later, leaders blame the labor market instead of asking what the first ninety days actually looked like.
Mark Lieberman, writing for Education Week, documented this exact pattern across the country: classified staff endures exhausting conditions and minimal support, yet many stay anyway because of the relationships they build with students (Lieberman, 2021). Imagine how many more would stay if the system met them halfway.
I think about the two people who ran my building long before I understood how much they carried. My administrative assistant and my head custodian had opened that school years before I arrived, and they knew every wire, every parent, every quirk of the boiler system better than any manual could explain.
She handled attendance, payroll questions, and the parent calls that could have escalated if not managed with care. He walked the halls before sunrise so that by the time students arrived, the building already felt safe and cared for.
I used to call them my right hand and my left hand, and looking back now, I realize they were never support staff to me. They were the reason I could spend my day in classrooms instead of behind a desk.
What made that partnership work was not luck. Someone before me had trained them thoroughly, checked in on them consistently, and made clear that their judgment mattered in decisions that affected the building.
Research on workplace engagement has found what many of us already sense: people rarely leave their jobs outright; they leave leaders who fail to invest in them (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999). Classified staff hear that message every day through how quickly a principal returns a phone call, whether their break room has working equipment, and whether anyone remembers their name in the hallway.
The best answer to recruitment and retention is not a bigger sign-on bonus, though pay matters. It is building a pathway where a bus driver knows there is a route to a coaching credential, a nutrition worker knows there is a route to a lead position, and every classified employee understands their work is inseparable from a student’s ability to learn.
So here is the invitation.
- Walk your building this week and find one classified employee whose name you are not fully sure of, and learn it along with their story.
- Ask your HR director how many classified new hires received a real onboarding experience last year, not just a packet of forms.
- Then decide, together with your staff, whether your recruitment plan treats these roles as central to student success or as gaps to be patched.
Your students are already telling you which answer is true, through attendance, through behavior, through the quiet trust they place in the adults who greet them every single day.
What will you do differently by Friday?
#EducationalLeader,
Kim
When students are well led, they learn well.
References
- Buckingham, M., & Coffman, C. (1999). First, break all the rules: What the world’s greatest managers do differently. Simon & Schuster.
- Institute of Education Sciences. (2024, October 17). Most U.S. public elementary and secondary schools faced hiring challenges at the start of the 2024–2025 academic year [Press release]. National Center for Education Statistics.
- Lieberman, M. (2021, September 20). No bus drivers, custodians, or subs. What’s really behind schools’ staffing shortages? Education Week.
The views shared herein are solely those of Dr. Kim D. Moore and do not necessarily reflect the positions of her employer, the school district, or any local, state, or federal government entity.
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