As we think of school, we often think of a classroom filled with students and a teacher at the front working with them in a certain curriculum for a defined period. Certainly, teachers are at the center of the child's academic experience. However, if we put so much weight upon just the teacher, we are ignoring many other people who are working diligently, tirelessly, and most of the time invisibly to help the learning community function. These are the unsung heroes of learning, the school staff working behind the scenes to make sure students have the environment, resources, care, and structure to be successful in their learning!
This blog will express a few of these significant pieces of the educational experience: janitors, administration, aides, librarians, counselors, cafeteria staff, school nurses, information technology (IT) staff, security staff, and even parents and guardians are significant pieces of the larger educational puzzle of shaping the future one student at a time.
1. The Administrative Backbone: School Secretaries and Office Staff
A school day starts much earlier than the first bell, thanks to the diligence of the office staff and administration arriving to file attendance records, set meetings, notify substitute teachers, respond to parents, get reports ready, and plan for educational compliance. School secretaries are often the first people you see when you enter the building, which is important to encourage the anxious staff, students, and parents they assist.
School secretaries and office workers perform their jobs as a combination of public relations, operations, and crisis management. They perform several functions at the same time and deal with calls, comfort sick students, deal with emergencies, and process paperwork that administrators assign them while projecting a calm and helpful manner.
Secretaries and office staff make a school function like a machine; if it were not for the secretaries and professionals, there would be chaos instead of coordination.
2. The Heart of Hygiene: Custodians and Maintenance Workers
The classroom experience would not be complete without cleanliness and orderliness, which are hallmarks of custodians' and maintenance workers’ labors. These people help establish learning environments that are safe, clean, and bright. The scope of their work goes way beyond merely mopping floors and taking out garbage. They fix broken equipment, understand how the heating and cooling systems work, and often need to be the first people on the scene for emergencies like managing a plumbing issue or power outage.
When COVID-19 reared its ugly head, custodial staff became prominently showcased in schools as frontline personnel responsible for deep cleaning and sanitising every aspect of the school. Their responsibilities directly affect student health and attendance, but they come as very little visibility and certainly little celebration.
3. The Quiet Supporters: Teaching Assistants and Aides
While teachers are often front and center when it comes to instruction and implementation, teaching assistants (TAs) and aides have an equally important and quiet role in supporting individual students to keep pace. TAs typically provide one-on-one support, usually for teacher-directed individual work; maintain the behavior of learning in the classroom; support individual students who require support; and support the implementation of a lesson.
TAs and aides work with levels of patience, empathy, and flexibility/adaptability to meet a diverse range of student needs. Many aides form ongoing relationships with students and become tremendously important in their academic and social growth and emotional development. In special education classroom contexts, aides are invaluable as they help students participate in inclusion or individualised learning experiences.
4. The Guardians of Wellbeing: School Counselors and Nurses
Modern education, while focused on intellectual development and learning, is also focused on mental and physical well-being. School counselors play a major role in guiding students through academic decisions, personal situations, and mental health challenges. Especially as anxiety, bullying, and depression in youth are on the rise during this period, counselors provide safe spaces for students who are trying to explore and manage their emotions and experiences, while brainstorming possible solutions. In the same way, school nurses are responsible for treating everything from scraped knees and headaches to managing chronic health conditions such as asthma or diabetes, and they are often part of the first line when a health crisis or issue occurs, whether it's managing outbreaks, completing screenings, or tracking hygiene protocols. Counselors and nurses often serve hundreds of students with very limited resources. Their work impacts attendance and performance, and ultimately, student success for the foreseeable future.
5. Holders of Knowledge: Librarians and Media Specialists
As information overload becomes more prevalent, school librarians have never been more paramount. They enable students to read for pleasure, navigate research, and develop media literacy competencies. A school librarian is not just a keeper of books; it is a roadmap to learning independence. Additionally, they curate resources, help students evaluate credible sources, and often function as tech support or research facilitators, amongst countless others. For many students, the library may also serve as a sanctuary from the chaos of their school environment, as a calm space where they can explore ideas and be curious.
Media specialists who are in charge of curated digital learning platforms/online resources also belong to this group. Their roles have become even more important with the shifts to blended and remote learning environments.
6. Deliverers of Fuel: Cafeteria Staff
Learning is a challenging feat when you are hungry. School food service workers make sure that students are fueled to learn by delivering nourishing food that meets all dietary and nutritional standards, which means proper nourishment. For many segments of society, school meals are the only consistent or reliable source of nutrition for children, especially children from low socio-economic backgrounds. They specifically plan, cook, and serve food to many hundreds of students per day with value-added formulas (often with THE most warm and welcoming smiles, many students remember for years).
7. The Protectors of Safety: Security Staff
Students cannot learn if they do not feel safe. Security personnel are the guardians of the physical spaces of schools. Whether it is guarding the entrance, facilitating safety drills, or patrolling the hallways, their position provides reassurance and immediate response in emergencies. Security staff can forge positive rapport with kids and can be mentors and protectors. The role of security is critical in settings where there is school violence or threats from outside.
8. The Digital Bridge Builders: IT and Tech Support Staff
Learning is now ingrained with technology, from smartboards, tablets, learning management systems, and online assessments, support staff maintain this digital ecosystem. They install, troubleshoot, repair, and maintain technology infrastructure, help teachers learn how to use digital tools, and work to enforce secure digital practices. In the transition to online learning globally, they moved to an indispensable role. While many work in back offices, far from students and classrooms, their support roles touch every digital lesson and tech-enabled learning experience.
9. The First Teachers: Parents and Guardians
Though they technically are not employees of the school, the impact that parents/guardians have on a child’s education is irreplaceable. Their communication, contact, encouragement, attendance at school events, and support on homework all influence student outcomes in an effective, positive way.
Parents help to form the values, attitudes, and habits that our students bring to their schooling. Most often, success in reading or numeracy for children in the beginning grades is strongly influenced by the education they receive at home. Schools that enjoyed building good home-school partnerships reported better behaviour, increased attendance, and improved academic outcomes.
10. Leadership in the Shadows: School Heads and Coordinators
The principal, vice-principal, and academic coordinators foster the school culture, facilitate instructional change, manage staff, and navigate bureaucratic processes. They continue to walk the fine line between being a leader (developing a vision) and a manager (implementing the logistics). Strong school leadership correlates with staff morale, student success, and institutional viability. Leaders connect staff, students, families, and the broader community; they sometimes become the compass of the school during periods of uncertainty and anxiety. However, it is their day-to-day work with and through policy, budgets, and improvement plans that we rarely celebrate publicly.
11. Volunteers, Alumni, and Community Partners
Numerous schools benefit from volunteers and community members who provide hours of their time by serving as mentors, tutoring, supervising field trips, and supporting after-school programs. Alumni, who contribute their time by returning to serve as guest speakers, provide guidance and collaboration, mentor and donate, and work to motivate students. Nonprofits and businesses that work with schools offer opportunities for student learning and development with sponsorships, internships, or enrichment programs. These community ties extend the learning environment beyond the confines of school and make learning more accessible, relevant, and inclusive. It’s more than just recognition. Recognition relates to respect, support, and inclusion. When we recognize the contributions of all members of the school community, we develop a more collaborative, grateful, and motivated learning environment for school staff. If custodians are valued, cleanliness improves. If librarians are given autonomy, curiosity grows. If IT staff are resourced, tech-enhanced learning flourishes. If parents are invited to be part of the learning community, achievement improves. Feeling ignored means schools risk the opportunity to build a stronger learning system from within the interconnection of teachers, educators, support staff, and every contributor as part of the school community. Just like a symphony cannot exist without the existence of every instrument, a school cannot exist without the contribution of every contributor to the vision.
SkilTrak: Your Seamless Placement Partner
At SkilTrak, we acknowledge that meaningful learning experiences are impacted by more than just the teacher; rather, there is an entire ecosystem that works in support of the student learning journey. Our placement services are designed around the "collaboration" aspect of the workplace, which is are "real-world" environment just like a workplace, where everyone in every role plays a role in learning (supervisors, co-mentors, support staff, etc.). By identifying all of the contributors within an organisation, SkilTrak is not only ensuring students gain academic skills, but also learn the role and impact of working within a collaborative, respectful, and inclusive environment. We aim to support students in learning environments where they can demonstrate the values described here in this blog - teamwork, showing gratitude, and appreciation for everyone, all of you unsung heroes, who provide exceptional support, addressing the learning opportunities!
Conclusion: A Call of Thanks and Belonging
The heroes of learning don't always wear a name tag on their shirt and don't always stand in front of a classroom. Some care, some feed, some clean, some heal, some protect, and some lead in silence. Yet they all leave an imprint on a child's life. As educators, decision-makers, and members of communities, we need to change our view of education as a whole, for it is a collective. Quality learning is not only shaped by curriculum but also by the invisible web of support that gets woven behind the curtains every day. Over the next month, I urge you to stop for a moment to thank the custodians, the secretaries, the aides, the nurses, the cafeteria helpers, the parents, and those who enable, make, and value it possible, often without ever being asked. I bring this up as I reflect on these heroes of learning, for whenever one thinks of a hero, we rarely ever think of those behind every door at every school because every classroom door has a story of service with the soundtrack of silence, and behind every successful student is a village of stewards who like to work quietly without recognition.
