Bend-La Pine Schools honor classified staff members

This is National Classified School Employees Week

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Bend-La Pine Schools’ 1,083 classified staff members clean buildings, cook and serve meals, drive buses, greet families, support students in the classroom and so much more. This week, Bend-La Pine Schools salutes all of our support staff members during National Classified School Employees Week, March 2-6.

“Our support staff members provide extraordinary service every day and we want to take time to appreciate all they do for our students and schools,” said Superintendent Shay Mikalson.

Each year, Bend-La Pine Schools honors one support staff member as Outstanding Support Person of the Year. This year, that staff member is Debbie VanVliet, kitchen supervisor at Pacific Crest Middle School. She takes time to learn every student’s name and is known for her exceptional work ethic.

Support Staff by the numbers:

• We are home to 1,083 total classified employees, which includes a diverse collection of staff members including office staff, custodial, maintenance, transportation, Information Technology, educational assistance, nutrition services and more.
• Bus drivers transport more than 5,000 students every morning and afternoon - for a total of about 10,000 students each day.
• Maintenance and custodial crews maintain more than 2.85 million square feet of school building space.
• Nutrition Services staff members serve more than 17,000 meals every school day. That's more than 2.5 million meals a year.