The Chicago Board of Education voted to end their relationships with two private companies that received hundreds of millions of dollars for custodial services but did a lousy job. The companies got a one-year renewal while the school system prepares to restore their own custodians.
Chicago Public Schools plans to end its maligned relationship worth hundreds of millions of dollars with two facility management companies, one of which for years has maintained filthy schools, in an effort to regain control over the cleaning and maintenance of its hundreds of buildings.
CPS officials are renewing contracts with Aramark and Sodexo for one more year to give themselves time to come up with an alternative, then they’re calling it quits after a turbulent stretch of outsourced work that includes oversight of janitorial, landscaping, snow removal and pest control services.
CPS first tried that model, called integrated facilities management, in 2014 as a pilot program at a few dozen schools. More buildings were then added to Aramark’s and Sodexo’s control each year through 2018 until management of all CPS facilities fell under the two companies’ control. Prior to 2014, school engineers and principals managed their own facilities.
The change comes as schools remain closed during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Parents and teachers have long lamented CPS’ ability to keep its buildings sanitized, concerns that are heightened while there is no cure or vaccine for the highly-contagious novel coronavirus.
A Chicago Sun-Times series in 2018 revealed disgusting, pest-filled conditions at dozens of schools managed by Aramark that failed surprise inspections, even as the district signed rich contracts to expand the company’s work.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Privatization is often a slow, slippery slope that replaces real jobs with decent benefits with low paying gigs with little to no long term obligations to workers. The private sector has been chiseling away at decent paying public jobs in the post office, military as well as state and local governments. Often the changes go unnoticed until there is a crisis like when a private water company was found to not be treating public water properly.
Privatization is a massive loss for working families. It is also a massive transfer of wealth from working people to the wealthy. The privatized service often costs the public more for a service that may be worse. The privatized prisons are a perfect example of paying more for less. Once privatization of public services become accepted, privatizers continue to monetize public services at the expense of working families, and they will always seek to expand their territory.
I can recall when my district changed to a private cleaning company after having had in-house employees. Teachers complained that floors were not cleaned properly, and some rooms were completely skipped. We were told none of the workers were full-time employees. For many of the cleaners our school was the second or third part-time job for these workers, and they were given two hours by their company to complete the entire building.
Parents and teachers successfully stopped our district from privatizing custodial services. The custodians were viewed as part of the building families and did far more than keep the floors clean. The students knew and trusted them, and the custodians knew and looked out for the students. Teachers expressed that they would not feel safe staying late in a building with contractors who could change from week to week, and the kids would lose that trusting relationship they had with their building custodian(s). The cost savings were not worth the “cost.”
We also kept our day time custodian that heated the building, cleared snow, and handled day time spills and accidents, but we hired the cleaning service for over night cleaning and emptying trash. Our custodian was family and captain of the local fire department. He is still a good friend on social media.
Oh yes. My teacher friends there sent pictures of filthy bathrooms lacking soap, toilet paper, and hand towels. Teachers had to bring their own for thousands of kids in big high schools.