Nikki Clear tackles big challenge and wins prestigious award

from MEA Voice Magazine

Her unit was on the verge of decertification from the Michigan Education Association (MEA) a little over one year ago when school bus driver Nikki Clear took over as president of her local union representing transportation employees, food service workers, paraeducators, and secretaries. Now Clear has won MEA’s Leon A. Brunner Award – the MEA’s top honor for support staff members.

A bus driver for four years in Stockbridge Community Schools, Clear jokes that she didn’t know what she was getting into when she volunteered for the role. But she understood one glaring truth: she had to raise membership – then hovering around 20% – and hopefully lift morale and engagement.

She had less than a month to sign up enough people to save the unit, so she started with talking to folks in transportation who knew her best. They all joined. Then all the food service employees followed suit. And most of the secretaries and paras signed up, too.

Her membership percentage rocketed past 80%.

“I’m a big pain in the butt,” she says. “I said to them, ‘If you want change, let’s do this. But we’ve got to do it together.’ They all know me; they know I won’t quit until I get the job done.”

With that immediate task successfully completed, Clear joined MEA’s Local Presidents Academy where new leaders meet all year to explore the demands, challenges and tools of the role. Everywhere she goes, she meets other leaders and makes more connections.

Meanwhile, the bargaining team she led negotiated a strong contract with the biggest pay raises her members had seen in years. They won seven new paid holidays. This summer the team came back for language changes needed to better support members.

Education support professionals (ESP) do important work as part of a team of educators, she said,  likening school to a truck with four tires. “One of those tires is the teachers, and the other three are your support staff,” she said. “If any one tire’s flat, you’re not moving.”

Her unwavering belief in and support for her members sets her apart, according to a joint Brunner Award nomination letter signed by three of those people: Jodie Jacobs, a food and nutrition employee and local ambassador, along with Brittany Monette and Debbie Fendelet, both from transportation.

“She has the compassion and drive to make us and everything better in our working family environment, and we are a family, thanks to her,” the nomination letter said. “She has fought for fair wages and better treatment and acknowledgment of the staff.

“She believes that happy, healthy employees bring positive structure to our students and everyone is an influence to these young minds.”

Clear is also taking that message to the community by creating opportunities for members of her local to get involved together in events around Stockbridge. She began in June with Day in the Village, a Father’s Day weekend tradition in town.

In the school support staff’s corner of the action, kids competed in watermelon-eating contests, shimmied under an inflatable limbo stick, tossed balls into cups, and played corn hole. [SCN Ed. Note: Stockbridge ESP also had a notable presence in the 2023 Gregory Fourth of July parade and the kids’ activities afterward.]

In a short time, Clear’s enthusiasm and hard work has connected people from different jobs and buildings who didn’t even know each other existed before,” said MEA member Kim Machette, the head cook at the high school.

“Now we are a closer-knit group because of Nikki’s efforts,” said Machette, who has worked in the district and belonged to the union for 19 years.

In addition to community building and outreach, Clear and her union ambassador, Jodie Jacobs, will soon be connecting members with a new mentoring program they applied for and were selected by NEA to test pilot in the 2023-24 school year.

It all comes down to doing what’s best for the kids, and that means hiring, training and retaining great people, Clear says: “Happy staff – happy students – happy admin.”

She loves helping kids start and end their days on a positive note as a driver. She gets to know students so she can spot when things aren’t going well and what they might need – a chance to talk or some music to listen to.

She cuts water bottles in half and Velcros them to the dashboard to add dirt and plant seeds that kids can watch grow. For March is Reading Month, she hands out books she’s collected – one a week per student – along with bookmarks and key tags.

“We’re like The Magic School Bus, always doing fun things,” Clear said.

Nikki’s motivation and drive are remarkable, says her MEA-assigned leadership mentor – Gypsia Flath, an 11-year paraeducator and four-year president of her local union in Escanaba. “She has accomplished in one year what took me four,” Flath said.

“We can give anyone all the information to be successful,” Flath added. “However, it is up to the mentee to turn the information into action. Nikki and her team ran like their pants were on fire!”

In June, Clear attended her first ESP Statewide Conference and there she received the Leon A. Brunner Award, which recognizes support staff members for dedication to their union, advocating for ESP member issues, and promotion of ESP careers.

Who would’ve thought just starting out last year she would be receiving a prestigious award, Clear said in her acceptance speech.

“One thing I’ve learned has been: We all have a voice,” she said, challenging attendees to bring one new member to the conference next year. “I figure if we all work together, we’re going to keep growing and growing and have a bigger voice, and then imagine what we can do.”

Nikki Clear represents Stockbridge’s education support professionals in the Michigan Education Association. This story is excerpted, with permission, from the full article that originally appeared in the August-September 2023 issue of MEA Voice magazine by the Michigan Education Association.

Except where noted, story photos provided by MEA Voice magazine.

Nikki Clear, bus driver and local union president in Stockbridge, is this year’s winner of the Michigan Education Association’s Brunner Award.

When Nikki Clear made a last-minute plea for help running a booth at A Day in the Village, her members turned out.

Nikki Clear received the Leon A. Brunner Award—MEA’s top honor for support staff members—at the Education Support Personnel Conference.

The Educational Support Professionals at Stockbridge schools has increased their presence in the community through participation in A Day in the Village, Gregory Fourth of July events, and more. Photo provided by Mary Jo David