Not too late to fix school-pay outrage
As a tax paying resident of Barrington Community Unit School District 220, I am appalled to learn our school board awarded a contract to RJB Properties Inc. that pays our high school custodians an abysmally low hourly rate of $8.50.
This is a $1.27 pay cut from the previous miserly $9.77 hourly rate. The $8.50 per hour equates to an annual salary of only $17,680, which is $6,570 below the $24,250 federal poverty level for a family of four. The District 220 school board should be ashamed, not only of their callous indifference to the plight of these workers, but for the deplorable message they are sending to our students and community, that somehow the lives of the persons entrusted with cleaning our schools don't matter, or somehow matter less.
What a terrible civics lesson for our students. Despite statements to the contrary, District 220 shares culpability for the current situation, because when it solicited bids from contractors for custodial services, they failed to specify minimum wage rates for the custodial positions to be filled.
It's not too late to fix a wrong. The District 220 school board needs to intervene, correct this injustice and otherwise ensure that the custodians who clean our schools are provided with a basic living wage and reasonable benefits.
John Clark
Fox River Grove