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Did you know Aurora Public Schools has a group of professionals—outside of our human resources gurus—that focus their time and attention on helping departments get fully staffed and ensuring employees feel welcomed? Like, actually making sure new staff members have support to be the best champions for students and families?
You bet we do.
If you spend any time around Nutrition Services Executive Director Shannon Solomon, you’ll understand why she takes this part of her job so seriously. Seven years ago as the director of Nutrition Services, Solomon realized staffing for high-turnover positions was a full-time job. To ease the stress, she created a crew of specialists—Madison Byrne, Janet Fulkerson, Ana Gimenez, Bianca Mendoza and Karina Olivera—who were charged specifically with supporting the recruitment, retention and onboarding of new employees and much more. A department within a department, if you will.
The work they began doing made an imprint on people, including APS Chief Financial Officer Brett Johnson, who was also trying to help our Transportation team with similar challenges.
“He was saying how APS had this outside company that we leaned on for support,” Solomon said of her conversation with Johnson. After she pitched the idea to take a similar staffing approach with Transportation, Johnson was hesitant given the workload involved. That was all Solomon needed to hear.
“I said, ‘challenge accepted.’”
In the time since, Solomon’s vision has come to life and our staffing specialists have used their creativity to stretch the limits of what she thought was possible. The Nutrition Services Department is currently at 113% occupancy and they have helped the Transportation team more than double the amount of drivers so far this school year.
“It is super rewarding to see new staff follow the process and finally get trained,” Gimenez lauded through happy tears. “And then when we see them driving by themselves, it is super emotional.”
Fulkerson echoed that sentiment and emphasized her passion for helping people obtain meaningful opportunities.
“They all come from different countries. Whether this is their first job or their first opportunity, this could be that job for them to get a better opportunity,” Fulkerson said.
New bus drivers like Jingli Mao are the epitome of the positive outcomes the APS staffing team has seen thus far. A professor from China, Mao came to the United States and has so far left quite the mark in APS.
“He’s an outlet for all the students [on his route] that speak Mandarin,” Byrne said. ”He goes out of his way to teach some of the students [on his bus route] Mandarin Chinese. He’s very interactive with them, regardless of the language barrier. The students are actually able to have that more personable interaction with the person that is transporting them to and from school.”
Stories like Mao’s are what continue to drive Solomon’s crew. In fact, they’d like to start a staffing resource center for APS to help uncover more gems beneath the surface and foster a strong internal culture. They say building a lasting and scalable model will help people feel connected to a bigger purpose and ensure APS becomes a true Destination District.
“We need to meet our internal customers where they are at,” Solomon said, “and love on the people who serve our kids.”
NOTE: Not pictured above is Janet Fulkerson.