Events & Training

Administrative Professionals Week is April 20-26, 2025, and Administrative Professionals Day is April 23. Join us as we celebrate the contributions of administrative professionals in public schools and community colleges.

Contributions of school office and clerical staff
Whether they work the front desk at an elementary school or manage files at the county office, school secretaries and other administrative professionals keep our schools running smoothly.

Classified employees in the office do just about everything. They maintain attendance records, answer the phones, pay the bills and communicate with parents and administrators—all while keeping pace with advances in computer, telephone and document reproduction technology.

The accounting staff crunches the numbers, and school secretaries help students with their medications. Whether they are registering thousands of students at a large community college or explaining the afternoon bus route to the parent of a first-grader, office workers are vital to the success of our schools. They serve as liaisons between parents, teachers and administrators. They help parents set up appointments with teachers, principals, counselors or other school staff.

The school office staff can tell you about irregular schedules, minimum days, in-service days, school events and any number of details about the school’s daily operations. They also handle all the paperwork and other clerical duties. With cutbacks in funding to schools, many schools don’t have nurses. When this is the case, the school office is also responsible for keeping a student’s medicine and giving it to the student when necessary. In general, each member of a school office’s staff has different responsibilities. Their duties range from principals’ secretaries and attendance clerks to receptionists. There are some tasks that are specific to certain people, while all the office staff might share other administrative tasks.

The school office is required by law to account for every student at the school since school funding is based on pupil attendance. Attendance clerks keep meticulous records and follow-up on student absences. The office staff uses specialized software to maintain computerized data on students, including grades, testing, attendance, discipline and health.

Fiscal and budget professionals make sure the money goes where it’s supposed to go. They keep track of funds, whether among departments, at the district level or from the school to the district budget office. Fiscal professionals work with all departments and divisions. They make sure that payroll checks go out and they keep track of grants, student fees and funding from the state. Fiscal professionals make sure that guidelines are followed so colleges and schools receive state and federal funding.