By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
They are the first to get to school and the last to leave. They are the ones who rush to clean up after a sick child, and the ones stuck cleaning out gross lockers.
“They are often overlooked in a building,” head custodian Chuck Martin said to the Bowling Green Board of Education last week as he presented some details about school custodians. “Everyone expects a building to magically become clean.”
The custodians are charged with opening the schools early, emptying trash, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning toilets and sinks, replenishing supplies, making minor repairs, cleaning windows, removing snow, setting up for extra activities, unloading trucks, assisting with fire and tornado drills, and closing up at the end of the day.
They arrive at school around 6 a.m., and at the high school the last one leaves around 11:30 p.m.
“We can’t have public in the building without a custodian there,” Martin said.
To give some idea of the scope of the responsibilities, Martin said the district’s custodians have almost one mile of hallways to mop, 232 toilets and urinals to clean, and more than 175 sinks to scrub.
There are 18 custodians in the district – two in each elementary, five and a half in the middle school, and six and a half in the high school. Since the district has 452,000 square feet of building space, that means each custodian is charged with keeping 25,115 square feet clean.
“This is every day, five days a week,” Martin said.
During the summer, while students and staff are gone, the custodians’ jobs continue. They clean the furniture and all the surfaces in classrooms, “from the ceiling down,” Martin said.
They refinish floors, scrub carpets, and at the middle school and high school, they have the unpleasant task of cleaning out whatever students left behind in their lockers – “which is quite a task,” Martin said.
The custodians take a lot of pride in the condition of their buildings, he said.
“Everyone who works in their building takes their building seriously,” Martin said.
As Martin wrapped up his presentation, the last Power Point screen sang the praises of the school district’s “quiet hero” – the school custodian who cleans messes no one else dares to touch, and who befriends everyone who passes by.
