Jessica Webb
editor@thesmokymountaintimes.com
Every parent knows just how difficult the task of cleaning up after children can be, just as anyone with an older home knows there’s a lot of maintenance involved. At public schools, that’s where a dedicated staff of custodians and maintenance workers come in.
With a small staff of 15 custodians and 5 maintenance workers, the crew sets the conditions to see Swain County Schools stay clean and operational— a task which has been that much more important during a pandemic.
The start of the pandemic ushered in a new emphasis on cleanliness. School bus seats, tables, chairs: every surface had to be cleaned after every use.
“You had to be more cautious about disinfecting stuff and more often,” said Vic Bridges, custodian at Swain Middle School.
The goal: wipe everything down and keep everybody safe, but as, Tommy Dills, maintenance and custodial director, notes that’s easier said than done when it comes to kids because “they have their hands on everything.”
The schools even switched up cleaning products, using QT3 across the board, a peroxide-based product. Every classroom was equipped with hand sanitizer stations and cleaning sprayers.
Supplying the upgraded demand in cleaning products was its own challenge.
“Everything come about so fast,” recalls Bridges. “We had to get 200+ sprayers so they could spray down workstations.”
Dills said the district benefitted from community input with western North Carolina distilleries making hand sanitizer and people donating supplies. “The community and nation as a whole did rally and try to make things available because it did happen really fast,” Dills said.
Dills said while the department didn’t lose workers through the pandemic, some did get sick, which of course required the others to step up and increase their workloads; there are no substitutes.
“They are right there on the front lines cleaning things,” Dills said.
Bridges said there is teamwork and trust among the custodians.
One of the biggest increases in the workload at Swain Middle School is during lunch, Bridges said, with trash collection having to happen every 30 minutes in a handful of spots given the school has arranged it so students can have increase space during their meals.
Bridges has worked with Swain Schools for 9 years. Others have been with the department for longer: Ed Greene for nearly 30 years; Tommy Fuller for 25 and Tommy Wiggins for over 15.
As to what keeps him at the job, Bridges replies: “The kids. It’s not the pay… I enjoy seeing the kids. And, the people I work with, we can joke around with each other, it’s like family.”
A custodian must get down an efficient routine. Bridges said the only thing that’s hard is getting up so early. His day begins at 4 a.m. and he arrives at the school at 5 a.m. Morning work includes sweeping and mopping the gym, gathering trash up, sweeping halls and vacuuming. Then, it’s lunchtime work and whatever else is needed.
“It’s all the time something. You might be done at gym, and they call a kid’s sick in the cafeteria. Every day is different, which is what I like about it. To me, it’s the kids and aggravating people is what I like,” he said, with a smile.
Maintenance
Maintaining five schools all of which are in older buildings with aging systems takes a can-do approach. For Wayne Cutshaw, it’s all about problem solving.
“It’s almost all of what I do,” he said. “The equipment and I are a good match because we’re both old and break down a lot,” he jokes. “I spend all my time troubleshooting and fixing things.”
Oddly enough, he said, remote learning last year eased some of the pressure for his department that is tasked with keeping everyone at a comfortable temperature and making sure everything from the lights to the power outlets are working for the school to function.
“The way it was harder was the material availability, that was the biggest complication factor,” said Dills. While supply is improving, delays are still common.
Cutshaw said what keeps him on the job most of all is the challenge. “Even though I’ve been here almost 10 years, working on this equipment is challenging with so many different things,” he said. “I like a challenge; it keeps me learning. I get to learn and talk to engineers and learn a lot about new stuff coming out as far as the industry, it helps me stay on top of things. The other thing is my daughter is a student.”
He admits that sometimes it gets frustrating when the needs pile up and when urgent calls mean having to stop one job to get that done first, but they just keep plowing forward to get the work done.
Dills agrees that the district could benefit both from the state increasing wages for support staff, as well as possibly adding additional employees. It is a balancing act between those two needs, however.
“What I would say is we have people doing jobs for us that it’s obviously not for the money, and it does make it frustrating that we can’t afford to do better by them,” Dills explained. “Starting pay is $11.60 an hour plus benefits for custodians. The benefits have value, but you can’t eat insurance.”
He hopes to see relief from federal funding and the next state budget.
It’s all too easy to forget all the work that goes into keeping schools clean and functioning, and sometimes they do hear a lot of complaining when things aren’t working the way they are supposed to. Dills stressed, however, that he is proud of his crew that comes in every day and puts in the hard work. Rest assured, there is plenty of joking around to keep things from getting too serious.
“To summarize, we’re working, and that’s the thing, we are not able to satisfy everybody all the time, but we come into work every day and give it our best,” Dills said.