It is easy for students to get trapped in their own world. The stress of school, sports, honor societies, and clubs can overwhelm a young person. However, none of those activities would be possible without the people taking care of our school: custodians.
Each day as students rush out of school, the night custodians come in. From 2:30 to 11PM, the night janitors are tasked with cleaning up the mess that students left behind. This includes taking the trash from all of the rooms, vacuuming the entire building, and disinfecting both bathrooms and classrooms.
Once the athletic teams have ended practice and also left the building, the janitors begin cleaning the athletic facilities, team locker rooms, the pool locker rooms, and the pool itself.
Seth Coulombe spent the first 12 years of his time on the cleaning staff working the night shift; however, he switched to the day shift this past year.
The daytime custodians arrive long before the students, taking care to prepare a safe and clean educational environment for both staff and students.
In order to be at the school by 6AM, custodian Seth Coulombe wakes up at 4:30AM.
While many people are just waking up, Coulombe is opening the building, checking for overnight damages, and making sure all facilities are stocked for the day.
Throughout the school day, Coulombe can be found cleaning up after the lunch waves, taking out the trash, or delivering packages.
Jo-Lynn Wisniewski, another member of the custodial staff, has a similar routine to Coulombe.
Wisniewski has worked for the board of education for the last 24 years. She worked her first 12 years as a lunch aid and has spent the past 12 as a member of the custodial staff. Wisnewski made the switch to a custodian because the position offered more hours, which she appreciated as a single mother.
Arriving at 6:30AM, Wisniewski completes the same pre-student arrival tasks as Coulombe. Once the school day starts at 7:25AM, Wisniewski can be found in the cafeteria cleaning up after breakfast.
In theory, cleaning up after breakfast should not be much work. There are not nearly as many kids at breakfast as there are at the lunch waves. Nonetheless, there is still a big mess left for the custodians to clean up every morning.
Empty cartons, dirty napkins, food wrappers, and even spilled drinks can be found on a large number of the cafeteria tables with their chairs left not pushed in.
After cleaning up breakfast, the mess is quickly recreated during the lunch waves. Some students leave behind their food, drinks, trash, and trash without a second thought during all three waves.
Cleaning up is nothing new to the custodians. Wisniewski had no complaints about cleaning up after students but rather the rude attitude students can have.
Since students have returned to school post pandemic, Wisniewski says, “Attitudes have changed a lot. [Students are] not as friendly or respectful as they used to be.”
She later adds, “I understand accidents happen and that’s fine, but when the students purposely dump water bottles on the table and floors or leave trays and trash . . . and throw food, it’s just disrespectful and unnecessary.”
Even with all that, Wisniewski bears no ill will toward the students. She sees that the majority of students are well mannered and it is just a small percent who are unruly. Wisniewski says, “I love my job, my coworkers, the staff, and the students.”
As members of the WHS community, it is time students clean up their act.
