Bend-La Pine Schools is served by nearly 900 classified employees who clean and maintain buildings, cook and serve meals, drive buses, support students in the classroom, ensure technology is performing well, answer phones and greet families and so much more. This week, Bend-La Pine Schools is celebrating all of the support staff members and their contributions during National Classified School Employee Appreciation Week, March 7-11.

“We cannot appreciate and thank our classified employees enough for their hard work and dedication to keeping our schools running,” said Superintendent Steven Cook. “Much of their work goes unnoticed and is performed late at night or early in the morning, but because of their efforts we are able to open our buildings every day and provide great educational opportunities for students.”

Support staff by the numbers:

• We are home to 889 total classified employees, which includes a wide range of staff members including office staff, custodial, maintenance, transportation, Information Technology, educational assistance, Nutrition Services and more
• Our drivers transport an average of 3,850 students each morning and afternoon and traveled 947,500 miles during the last school year
• Our Information Technology staff members current support 20,804 mobile devices (mainly student iPads) and 4,482 desktop devices
• Maintenance and custodial crews maintain more than 3.2 million square feet of school building space and outside maintenance crews maintain 600 acres of grass, parking lots and landscaping
• From Sept. 2021 to Jan. 2022, Nutrition Services staff members served over 1 million meals.

“We encourage students, families and the community to join us in appreciating our classified employees this week,” Cook said. “Thank a bus driver, a nutrition services employee or an educational assistant in the classroom, and let them know that ‘we see you and we appreciate you’.”