At my school the custodians will not vacuum your room unless you have already vacuumed it. Does that make any sense? Anyway, the head custodian had the nerve to write a list of all the teachers who's rooms had dirty floors, and then the principal forwarded it to the entire school. I don't really care because I feel like my room is clean enough. I teach first grade and between cutting paper and snack time it can get a little messy but I do make them pick up every other day. It doesn't hinder our learning success. What bothered me was being on this so called "naughty list," it was kind of embarrassing. I feel like my responsibility is to educate my students, not make the custodians' work easier. They refuse to vacuum because it's too hard? What if I said "I don't feel like teaching ordinal numbers today because it's too hard?"...I feel like if you can clean toilets in the bathroom, surely you can vacuum paper off the floor...hope I don't sound crazy. :unsure:
who's running your school - the P or the janitor? No, you don't sound crazy. it's kind of sad actually.
I think it's important to teach and practice general respect and responsibility in that if you drop something you pick it up. So at the day's end, they're shouldn't be tons of large items of trash on the floor. But someone is always going to not realize their pencil rolled off the desk and their paper slipped from their binder as they left. And then there will always be those bits of paper from tearing pages from a notebook and things like that. I think so long as kids are generally cleaning up after themselves, the custodians are there to clean. I've always, always had the best custodians...even when I was in elementary school. They're all kind of legendary around here. Lol.
Where I student taught, if the chairs weren't put on top of the tables, the janitors refused to clean the room. Then they wouldn't clean the tables, because there were chairs on them.
We don't have custodians so I feel your pain. We have to sweep and mop ourselves (thank goodness we don't have carpet).
Custodians should clean. That's what they are paid to do. I would have laughed my butt off at the "naughty list" So would my own P. It's terrible your P lets the custodial staff make fools out of the teaching staff. That's a huge red flag. Run, don't walk to your nearest district and apply for a new position!
I don't think it's anything to leave a school over...at all. But I think there needs to be a discussion so everyone can hopefully reach an understanding and agreement.
Sorry, maybe leaving would be overdramatic but I do think it's bizarre to have custodians that will only clean under certain conditions that they have come up with.
LOL I am overdramatic, I'm trying to resist the urge to write a long satirical and sarcastic email about the situation.
It's okay, I am too. I would seriously have laughed though. Sorry you're in such a ridiculous situation. Hopefully you can set up a meeting with P and bring up your concerns. This idea I like better though: Hire your own private room cleaner in an attempt to bring down the head custodian. Hilarity ensues. I can produce the documentary.
That's a little bit worse than our janitors. It seems as though people will do as little work as possible to get by. I do make my children pick up at the end of each day.
I never have any problems with my custodian. But other teachers have reported stuff (like their personal cleaning stuff) stolen. The chorus department had 2 vacuums that the church uses on the weekend (we rent the music hall to a church) when they are done and the chorus teacher saw him take both of them and told him they were personal property and he said he was just moving them, she never saw them again.
Our custodians are just as terrible--ours will not sweep if the chairs aren't up--I understand that--but in my room, there is a large open space with no furniture, and that is never swept. The cafeteria tables are barely every wiped down. Here's the kicker that happened to me this week. I run my theatre program, and at the request of my AP and P my kids and I have been doing a massive clean out of the auditorium, light booth, wood room, etc. We spent the last month inventorying and cleaning. Over the weekend, the janitors took 10 tables and all their junk (lightbulbs, cleaning supplies, etc.) that had been in the dressing rooms that they were asked to remove and store properly and shoved it in my newly clean wood room, that I can not get into anymore, and we have a show opening next week. My AP was so angry!
At my old middle school, we had one very elderly janitor who couldn't lift anything heavy and refused to "do vomit," and a younger janitor who spent all his time shooting baskets in the gym. The students used to put dead bugs, etc, in the corners of the classrooms and chart how long it took the bodies to decompose since they knew nobody would sweep. And the teachers were given that stuff to sprinkle on vomit to dry it up, but the dried vomit would stay in the room or hall until people's footprints eventually ground it in or kicked it around. Both janitors had political connections to the administration. We did most of our own cleaning. (The secretary refused to have anything to do with computers. While she was there, thousands of dollars worth of software languished on the shelf, unopened and pristine, until it expired.) Putting up with these sorts of things is one (of many) reasons why so many of our schools are circling the drain.
Our custodians are ok I guess. We have three. Two for the hallways and one that does like the main hallway and gym. He is the only man on the custodian staff at our school so he does some of the heavier things. My custodian that does my room doesn't like to vacuum but she does at least sweep almost everyday. My bathroom does get cleaned in the mornings. We have both carpets and tile floor. The tile floor is on the back part of the room. She only mops half the floor. The part of the tile that is by the bathroom door. Over by my back table and desk she hasn't touched with a mop or broom since last summer. I sweep it every now and then when it gets bad. She did the same thing in my old classroom. It drives me crazy! she doesn't dust a thing!
The custodians at the OP's school must be encountering a LOT of really messy classroom floors where there's LARGE pieces of trash on the floors to the extent where they have to bend over & pick them up, otherwise, it gets their vacuums jammed up. There must be things on the floors such as pencils, pens, big, crumpled up paper, tons of paper clips that are a nuisance to pick up, yet they don't want their vacuums getting broken. At my current dump of a school, there's a "1/2 custodian". What I mean by that is, he does ONLY the very basics that are obvious: - emptying waste paper baskets - watering the huge lawns, which literally cover the majority of the small campus in which no one's allowed to walk on - replacing toilet tissue & the paper towel in the only unisex bathroom with one stall that the campus has You won't see him... - actually sweeping & mopping floors - scrubbing the gunk/paint off the tables/desks - making sure all the clocks have batteries
OP here. I teach first grade. They are REALLY possessive, they would never leave their school supplies on the ground for fear that someone else would take it. The only things that remain on my floor are small pieces of paper from using scissors. I think my custodians are under the impression that they should only be vacuuming dirt and dust.
Do you have any access to the janitorial staff outline? It normally contains a job description and list of duties and tasks that the custodians are responsible for. Your school or district may have them posted online. I googled and found quite a few from various schools. If you found one then maybe you'd have a better idea of what to expect from the staff, and if they are refusing to complete tasks that are required of them you can definitely bring that up to your P. Just another idea.
:lol::woot: Great reply!!! Our head custodian just might observe us. He's really a great guy and will do anything (unless he says the words I will be back in a minute.) He's a member of the small community and knows the kids, their parents, and grandparents. He's been there forever. If he's coming down the hall and hears noise in your room He will open the door and take charge!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also makes you wonder how thoroughly the bathrooms are actually being cleaned....eek! My custodian won't vacuum my small rug because it would require him to unplug the vacuum and re-plug it in somewhere else. I sweep it here and there and when it gets really bad I move it over next to the large one on a Friday afternoon. It's annoying but no where near as annoying as that situation!
Yikes!! I'm thankful for mine who are so helpful. At my old school, we had to beg for toilet paper bc the head custodian horded it.
All the custodians are running around, Looking for the teachers, but they can't be found, Cause they're down in the lounge, playin' hooky with the students.... And all the admins are running around, Lookin' for the students, but they can't be found, Cause they're down in the lounge playin' hooky with the teachers!
Oh, don't even get me started on that. I have a bathroom right out side of my classroom, and already, 3 times this semester the girls bathroom has ran out of TP...so I have to take my entire class of first graders down stairs after most of the boys have already went to the bathroom. It gets annoying!
Seems unprofessional for the custodian to write a list and even worst for the principal to forward it so it becomes public shaming. With that said, if you think the custodian should solely be responsible for cleaning you room, then you suck. Sure their job is to clean, but it should be within reason. They shouldn't have to clean a classroom where the teacher has no classroom management and his/her students leave a mess every day. Now I'm not saying that is you. I'm just saying it's not as simple as custodians should just do their job. No. It's also YOUR job to keep your classroom clean to a certain degree.
It's my job to make sure my classroom promotes an environment that leads to academic success. Little scraps of paper do not stop us from learning. I never asking for anyone to come into my classroom to vacuum, they simply came in and decided that they weren't going to vacuum unless I "pre-vacuum." That is ridiculous. My class is well managed by the way.
About the pre-vacuuming... So, just how many vacuums are floating around the school? My guess is it's not enough for teachers to pre-vacuum their classroom each day after school. Unless they're expected to hang around a couple hours after school while the vacuum makes its way down the hall.
NONE. ZERO. It's not even an actual rule. It's just something they've started saying. Over the last two days teachers have just started bring in their own vacuums so I think I am going to do the same and have them bypass my room altogether. It's not like they do anything actually worth while, like sanitizing desks. I have to do that myself with Lysol wipes.
Is desk cleaning in their job description? I know our janitors aren't required to clean our desks, we are. Some of the things that's being complained about not being done, aren't in our janitors' job description.
We have amazing custodians! They do an incredible job running our school. I respect the amount of work that they do and ensure I leave my classroom in a state that is easy for them to clean. At the end of the day students stack chairs, clean up garbage and supplies off the floor and straighten desks.
I had a custodian who felt that any food left out was left out for him :lol:. It took us a month to figure out that it was him eating it. He was wonderful though. He always gave me first dibs on any new furniture that came into our school. I absolutely love the custodian at my school. She is the tiniest thing and weighs maybe 100 lbs. She is wonderful and we have no problem collecting money for her Christmas and end of the year gifts. This year we bought her a sewing machine.
The janitors we have now are okay. They vacuum and empty the trash in our rooms and take good care of the main part of our building. The janitors we had before these two, not so much. When I was working over the summer, I'd go in the workroom/lounge for something and they'd be in there watching T.V. Okay, fine, everyone needs and deserves a break. I'd go in a couple of hours later for something else, and they were still there, repeat this a few times a day. One even napped on the couch on a regular basis. That happened day, after day, after day, etc.
Well, this brought back memories! We had a custodian that would take the food out of our garbage and put it on our desks. Once I had an apple that looked pretty rough and wasn't my favorite type, so I threw it away. The next morning it was on my desk. I didn't think much of it and threw it away again. The next morning I found it back on my desk! I was sure I was losing my mind! That afternoon I threw it in a coworker's trash can. The next morning it was on her desk. I never understood what this man was thinking. Eventually, he was fired because he was dealing drugs to our high school kids.
We have four custodians at my school (which has 3 floors because it used to be a high school) so I understand the custodians have a lot to do. But it really annoys me because i have never seen them mopping a classroom floor (which is really gross because we eat breakfast in the classroom). They don't change the trash bags each day, rather they just dump it into the big can, so old milk and other food remnants are there all week. It smells gross. The only time the bathrooms don't smell so strongly of urine that it leaks into the hall is when we have people visiting. I was happy because a parent complained to the board of education about the unsanitary conditions so for a week the custodians were required to do rounds (someone had to check the bathrooms every hour) and the bathrooms stopped smelling. The custodians hated it. I stay an hour or so after dismissal each day so i talk to the custodians a lot. They all gripe about cleaning up the building and i bite my tongue because yes, it does suck, but it's the job.
There is NO WAY I'd be bringing in a vacuum. I have kids check the floor at days end to pick up any pencils, loose papers, etc...we stack chairs...that's it. Once a week kids use baby wipe to clean desk tops.
Our custodians are awesome. My room always looks great. They don't do desks though, we have to do that. Our one custodian just died and he will be sincerely missed. He always cleaned off our cars when it snowed, made sure our doors were open and lights on in the am, and was a great guy. None of it was in his job description. But he wouldn't leave until everything was how he wanted it, even when it meant working off the clock.
I used to have a stuffed Beanie Baby rat as a class mascot. I came to school one day to find it on the table, the next day is was behind a book or somewhere else. The kids started noticing that it was in different places everyday. They loved looking for him!!! He recently died. Miss that guy.
