We contacted 539 districts by phone, email or fax between May 9 and August 19. We submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to districts that did not respond to our initial requests.
We asked districts if they contract out for food, custodial or transportation services. We also asked them to indicate their satisfaction with their current provider and if they made any changes since our last inquiry in 2018.
Districts are counted as contracting out if they use at least one contracted private sector employee to provide the district’s normal food, custodial or transportation services. This includes districts contracting with private employee leasing agencies to supply them with regular workers (not just substitutes). Private employees used for providing special education transportation were not included.
The survey covers only Michigan’s public school districts; neither charter schools nor intermediate school districts were surveyed. The Bois Blanc Pines district did not respond to our initial email or our FOIA request.