When we think of the people who make our schools run, teachers typically come to mind first. They are the ones who receive the symbolic apple on the desk or, more often these days, the gift certificate. And while their jobs, as well as the principals and other administrators who oversee school buildings, aptly receive our appreciation, an entire community of staff also works tirelessly to support students and schools — but receives less recognition.
Thriving school communities depend on many roles alongside teachers, from special education paraprofessionals, classroom aides, and substitute teachers to secretaries, lunchroom staff, and custodians. But these workers, known as classified or support staff, too often don’t receive the appreciation they deserve. Not only are they usually paid significantly less than teachers, but they are almost always paid hourly, so they don’t get paid over the summer or during breaks, and they do not have access to educational opportunities to deepen their knowledge and advance in the educational field. Because of this reality, school districts often have trouble filling these positions, leading to gaps that are deeply felt by staff and students. But what if we could begin to change that?
BrightBee sought to answer that question. For school districts, the company provides on-demand and long-term coverage for K-12 support staff from a pool of thoroughly vetted workers. BrightBee workers — known as “bees” — are treated like the valuable community members they are. Rather than a transactional “sub” relationship, they are supported in building their careers in education and increasing their compensation.
In this Q&A, BrightBee Founder and C“Bee”O Michael Lombardo speaks with Bark Media about the root causes of staffing issues in schools, the impact that shortages have on students and learning environments, and how BrightBee is using its K-12 education support staff network to drive a more regenerative and inclusive economy.
Bark Media: How did you first encounter the issue of school support staff shortages, and what made you want to address it?
Michael Lombardo: I worked in child literacy for many years, and through that work, I got a firsthand look at schools’ ongoing struggle to maintain adequate staffing. After a few conversations with school leaders, it became clear that this was an acute pain and there weren’t any organizations really focusing on it. What got me fired up was the why of the problem. Classified workers and support staff almost always live in a school’s neighborhood. They often attended the school or have kids who attend the school. And yet this diverse expression of a school’s neighborhood represents the workers who get paid the least and have limited opportunities for professional development. Unfortunately, the relationship between these workers and schools is often very transactional. But that got me excited, because I felt like there was an opportunity to do something that both elevated the worker and solved this acute problem for the school.
How does BrightBee help address this issue in the education ecosystem?
For me, the first question was How do we make these jobs more attractive? On one level, we think about this as an economic workforce opportunity. How do we connect people with good-paying jobs in public education and help schools with these very core functions? How do you have enough people serving food in the cafeteria, driving buses, and assisting special needs students? Most of the time, the first person a kid meets in the morning is not their teacher — it’s the person doing arrival and dismissal, the bus driver, the front office secretary. If they’re in an after-school program, the last person they see at the end of the day is also a classified worker. These people play a huge role in the student experience and in setting the tone for the school.
How do staffing gaps impact other school staff?
A shortage of staff causes pain points for everybody, and survey data from our school partners reveals that everything feels more sustainable when a school is fully staffed. We talk a lot about how we give the principal their day back. In surveys, 95% of our schools say the principal is better able to do their job every day because of us. I’ve never been in a meeting with a school principal that has not been interrupted at least twice. Everything in the school lands with them. When there’s short staffing on the classified side, it’s the principal who grabs the walkie and goes out on the yard. Instead of grabbing the walkie, we want them to be able to focus on being the instructional leader of the building.
Understaffed schools also affect teachers. The most common opening on the BrightBee app is for special education paraprofessionals. If you’re a classroom teacher and you have a student who typically has a one-on-one para who helps them through the day, and that person is not there, that disrupts your whole day and your class’s whole day. When that’s happening in multiple classrooms, it ripples across the school in significant ways. Addressing these shortages contributes to the morale and retention of both the teaching and non-teaching staff in the school.
How do you see this issue affecting students?
For students, it’s about the climate. Kids are very perceptive. When the adults are stressed out, the kids pick it up. When schools are short-staffed, a lot of the services kids need just don’t happen, or they’re done at a lower quality. When the PE teacher is out, the kids don’t get gym that day–and then their teacher loses their prep period too! Kids who need tutoring don’t get it because the person whose job it is to pull them out of class and walk them down to the computer lab is out. When there is only one person monitoring recess, it’s just a less safe environment for students.
It’s the same in classrooms. Classroom management is the bedrock of education. If the teacher is not equipped with the people they need in the room, less learning is going to happen. We do a lot of work with special needs students, and those students absolutely have a valid right to be in the classroom and to have a mainstream experience. But if they’re not getting their supports, it backs up onto the whole class. Nobody wants a teacher to feel like they are just trying to hold it together in the classroom.
How does BrightBee focus on strengthening and uplifting the school workers you serve?
That goes back to the fundamental question of How do we make these jobs better? We don’t pay drastically more, but we offer a much better experience. It starts with telling the impact story of what these support staff do. Go read the job description for a custodian in your school district. It won’t talk about helping contribute to the school and making a difference for students. It will talk about emptying trash cans. We emphasize the difference that staffers make in their community. Survey data we get back from workers indicates that overwhelmingly, they appreciate that and feel they’re making a difference. You can make more money at Costco than at BrightBee or a school district, but you don’t get the satisfaction of doing work that’s meaningful in your community.
We’ve also streamlined the onboarding process. Because of complexities in the school district hiring process, it often takes weeks or months to get hired, and then you are only approved to do one kind of job in one school district. BrightBee’s process is much faster and it enables people to do different kinds of jobs in multiple school districts. Maybe you started off thinking you were going to work in the cafeteria, but you see on BrightBee that you also qualify to do work as an after-school instructor. We can move you into roles that pay better and advance your career.
In our survey data, flexibility is consistently rated as what employees like best about BrightBee. We enable people to set their own schedules. Our Bees are often students or parents or have elder care responsibilities—or they play in a band! They have other important things in their lives that they need work to fit around. We can provide that flexibility, which schools just aren’t set up to do.
We also make a lot of corny bee jokes. That’s very intentional. These workers don’t get the same kind of recognition as the instructional staff, so it’s about showing them someone cares enough to try to bring a little fun to their day and make them smile.
What do you see as BrightBee’s role in driving a more regenerative and inclusive economy?
We’re a worker-oriented, mission-driven business. First and foremost, it’s about creating pathways for people to increase their earning power and improve their careers. The status quo is that if you get hired to be a crossing guard, no one ever taps you on the shoulder and says, Hey, have you thought about being a SPED para? We see the whole worker and give them the opportunity to do different kinds of jobs and increase their earning power quickly. You can get your first raise at BrightBee in about 6 weeks. We also provide upskilling programs. We may help someone identify, for instance, that if they attained a ServSafe certificate, they could work in this nutrition role that pays better. We provide a holistic career mentorship experience that looks at people’s potential for different kinds of jobs and helps them meet the requirements to do them.
Another thing we do is pay our Bees every week. Many school districts still run their payroll monthly, at best every other week. These folks are often living paycheck to paycheck, so paying them quickly makes a difference. That’s another way we try to impact the prosperity of the community.
What is one of your favorite anecdotes from your experience at BrightBee so far?
I go out and sub myself from time to time, and my favorite days are the ones I get to go into a school. When I go sub, I don’t tell them who I am. I just show up to work in the cafeteria. Last time I did this, I was filling a role called ops specialist, which is helping students with transition times, supervising the yard, and helping out during lunch. At the end, I told them I was the CEO of BrightBee. They expressed a lot of gratitude, not only for what we are doing at BrightBee, but that I had taken the time to come and spend a day in their shoes. They were like, “Yeah, we thought it was strange that you didn’t seem to know what to do out in the yard very well.” I muddled through okay, but it was a really cool experience. I was one of three ops specialists and there were other BrightBee folks on campus, so I got to see firsthand what their days were like and hear their stories. You just don’t realize how many people at a school interact with kids all the time. There is a beautiful, organic back-and-forth from the students and the teachers and the classified workers and our workers. Everyone is collaborating to give kids a really great day at school.