Janitor Benjamin Beckom repeats his weekly maintenance routine, blowing leaves and debris off of the school concrete.
By Yalan Zhu
Staff Writer
As the bell rings for students to leave from break and lunch, and go to their next period, they leave uneaten food and trash throughout the cafeteria and tables. The custodians work hard to clean up the mess efficiently, so they can guarantee a clean campus at all times.
“I love the fact that we take part in prepping everything up first in the evenings, so that when the students get on campus on the following day, everything’s like freshly clean and ready to go,” head of the night crew custodian Victor Sanchez said. “We take
pride in making sure that every classroom, restroom, activity, graduation and dance is right for you guys. We take a lot of time to
do that.”
Two custodians power wash the campus and use leaf blowers weekly to keep it tidy. The morning crew, consisting of three custodians, comes in at 6:30 am to help teachers set up their classrooms and prepare the school for eager students, while the night crew, consisting of seven custodians, arrives around 2:00 pm to clean up the trash, vacuum the classrooms and do not leave until 10:00 pm.
“The classrooms kind of go through what I call the magic pixie dust. The evening crew will come in and they’ll clean up all the bathrooms,” assistant principal Anthony Chan said. “They’ll make sure that the classrooms look nice and shiny for the next day. In general, you know, they do a great job, right? And you go to start the next day and they look for you.”
The custodians actively work throughout the school day as well. Seven of them stay on stand by to clean up during lunch, break and to ensure the trash cans do not overflow. If a sink is leaking or a toilet is clogged, they are close by to guarantee the day can run smoothly. The custodians do not only work after school on campus, but also at football games and events that take place after school like fundraisers and talent shows.
“We try to keep our campus as clean as possible so that obviously when you get guys to go to lunch, have your break, you can see the campus clean, and a lot of students will actually throw away your trash and help out, which is great for us,” Sanchez said. “It helps us out that people respect the campus.”
Since football games require high maintenance, they have to stay alert in case tables or chairs need to be moved. Restrooms need to be refilled and spills occur consistently throughout the games. Football games often end at 10:00 pm or sometimes later, and it takes longer than 30 minutes to clean up the entire stadium, the staff often work until midnight taking down posters, returning chairs and tables to their origins and keeping accidents in the trash. Despite the endless hours of hard work, the staff have dedicated their backs and efforts into making school more enjoyable for students, staff and teachers.
“If we all care about this place, and I hope that students do, we can make it easier for a custodial staff. We can all chip in to care about this place, so I think it’s really about stewardship,” Chan said. “When students leave milk or throw it on the floor, that adds time to our staff that now they’re not able to do something else.”