Am I the only one forced to do mandatory janitorial work at my school?

I would be sooooo nice to this dude that he can't even stand it any more. I love doing that to people like him. And if he says something like "Why are you being nice to me, I don't like you" I would just throw my head back and laugh and say "Oh, Mr. ----, you are such a kidder." I might even give him a hug.

 

OMG, I can only imagine how Mr. ____ would react if I did that. He'd probably have a freaking heart attack and trip over his huge feet to run and tell someone about my room.

I've NEVER had that sort of mess in my room, so Mr. ___ needs to stop whining and complaining about my room and acting like it's so horrible.

I understand what you mean. The custodians, like teachers are down in the trenches, so you'd think they'd be understanding. Also, even if we don't want to admit it, custodians are considered lowest on the totem pole of all the faculty and staff, so you'd think they would be especially compassionate, but i guess everyone is different. Fortunately one of the custodians has a heart, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, he was like, "Ms. Lyn, I don't care what Mr. ___ says. You're a teacher. It's not your job to sweep up. I'll do that."

It wouldn't surprise me, though I think more likely because they are thisclose all she has to do is not like me and say mean things about me and how I am being "so horrible" to her that he would be immature and take her side. He has also done work for her at her house and when she moved, I know he helped her. I doubt they have a romantic relationship, but they're definately friends.

What is PITA? Like a union? Also, thank you for the well wishes. I'm considering getting our union involved at this point because she is borderline harassing me.

 

LOL I think PITA in this case = Pain In The (you know what)

 

I agree w/ you.

 

My custodians are awesome people. They have never refused to do anything I've asked, but then, if it's small, I take care of it myself. I keep tools in the room and will fix anything I can so that I don't have to pull them from their routine. If we make an extra big mess, we clean it up. I don't consider it their job to clean up after me, they get paid to make the school look good. We make sure everything is off the floor and chairs are stacked on desks before we leave. (This is routine and takes less than 30 seconds, so it's not a hassle.) In 14 years teaching at 2 different schools, I've been through several custodians, and never had an issue. I guess I've been lucky.

 

Then I've been lucky as well, Christy! Our custodians (in fact, all that I've ever worked with at any school) are wonderful. They are valuable colleagues without whom our school just couldn't function. I feel that it is the responsiblity of my students to care for the classsroom--I won't tolerate them leaving a mess. They clean up the floor, stack chairs, wipe up their spills--they need to care for their environment. The custodians go above and beyond every day to make the school the best it can be.

 

[/QUOTE=MrsC;1159213] I feel that it is the responsiblity of my students to care for the classsroom--I won't tolerate them leaving a mess.
[/QUOTE]

I agree. I once asked a student to pick up the mess around her desk and she responded, "it's the custodian's job."

Let's just say I could tell she wished she hadn't said that when I finished talking to her about what the custodian's job really is! :lol:

 

We try to leave our room as clean as possible but sometimes we just don't have time to sweep and definitely not MOP unless it's something that needs to be cleaned up right away. We went 3 days without paper towel before I went into the Women's bathroom and took an extra roll from there and put it in myself (our paper towel dispenser is locked so i had to jimmy it open LOL). I don't feel I should be refilling the paper towels especially if it's in a locked case! Hopefully it won't happen again. If we have a major problem with our room being cleaned we can usually mention it to one of the custodians and they will take care of it although there are some that are just plain unapproachable.

 

My custodians are fabulous! They work really hard to make sure our school looks great. I try to help by doing my part. I leave my room tidy at the end of the day, make sure the chairs are stacked so they can clean quickly and I visit with them when I see them. One day after lunch I returned to my room and found that my students had left it a disaster... garbage all over the floor and their chairs were not stacked. The custodian came in to sweep and I told him not to bother, the students would clean up after themselves. When they came in from recess I lined them all up along the board and asked them who was responsible for cleaning up after lunch. I told them that the status of our room was unacceptable, and they had 30 seconds to get it looking proper. No big problems since then, and my custodians all appreciated it!

 

At the end of the day, I usually have all the students pick up the trash around their desks before they are dismissed for the day. I usually get a lot of "But Mr Sam, it's not mine!" And I usually respond with "It's not mine either, and if you don't pick it up, I will have to pick it up," or something of that sort. It takes them about a minute to do. When I worked with elementary school students, I would tell them they can't leave until they picked up five pieces of trash, and they would all run and clean up, because they didn't want anyone else taking "their" trash. Once in a while one of them would get smart and rip up their one piece to turn it into five, and they would have their "five" thrown out, and have to start over.

I'll vacuum the class if we've made a bit of a mess (okay, I'll make the kids vacuum, not me), and I often empty the trash if it is overflowing or if it has food trash in the trash can to avoid a smelly classroom. They've never asked me to do any of this, it just seems like the right thing to do to me. If I (or my students) have made the mess, then we should be the ones cleaning it.

ADD: I have never mopped, and never will. That's not my job. If it can't be cleaned up with paper towels, then I call the custodian.

This reminds me of a situation we had once, where one of the kids broke the glass on the fire extinguisher box and cut themselves and there was a trickle of blood on the hallway floor. After everything was over, I was looking for supplies to clean up the blood, but several other staff told me they had already called the custodians, and they were going to clean it up. Those two staff members stood there for 45 minutes, guarding the hallway, waiting for the custodial staff to come clean it up (they were legitimately busy). I finally cleaned it up myself and the two staff standing guard asked why I did that. I responded, "because we don't need to call the custodial staff to come and clean up ten drops of blood. It's really not that big of a deal." Its funny, because I don't think it ever dawned on them to clean it up themselves.