The custodial staff, also known as janitors, are the people keeping our school clean. Without them our school would be unsanitary.
There are daytime and nighttime custodians. The difference between the two is that day janitors deal with cleaning the school while in-session and night janitors clean after school hours.
Day custodians deal with all sorts of jobs, such as cleaning up all four lunches, emptying trashcans, mopping and cleaning up messes, as well as dealing with kids who may treat them unfairly or wrong.
Custodians deserve respect for their job, as without them our school environment would be inadequate and unhygienic.
Custodian Stephen Cooper has been cleaning our school for over 19 years. Working as a day janitor, he has seen everything when it comes to being on the custodial staff. He’s had positive interactions with the staff and most of the students during his time here. He truly enjoys his job, but deals with some negative aspects.
“The faculty here is very nice and so are most of the students as well,” Cooper said.
Being a custodian at our school is more than just picking up after students, it is about the positive interactions we make with each other as students and staff.
Having a job as tough as Cooper does makes for long days, especially when students do things that make his job even harder. When students do things to support him, such as keeping the bathrooms clean, picking up after themselves at lunch, or giving him an uplifting environment while working during the school day, Cooper feels fulfilled and content.
Cooper wants students to respect the up-to-date establishments that our school has to offer. The staff does everything to support the students, so the students should do the same in return.
“Some of the students ruin it for everyone by taking the nice facilities that Kickapoo has for granted,” Cooper said.
In particular, during the lunch periods the janitors only have five minutes in between every lunch to clean and sanitize the tables. This does not give them enough time to deep clean the lunch room.
“I don’t think they give us enough time to clean because the lunch room gets a beating. The kitchen staff cooks, then serves, and then we have to clean all of that up in such a short amount of time. It is hardly feasible. Most students are thankful and clean up after themselves, but the small percentage that don’t pick up after themselves or thank the custodians, is huge to us. It would help a lot if just some of the small number of students that don’t cooperate just thank us custodians and clean up their area,” Cooper said.
The custodial staff does everything they can to sanitize the lunch room with the short amount of time they have in between lunches.
Being a janitor isn’t only about doing hard work, it is about meeting students and being able to be there for each other as humans.
“A student came up to me, introduced himself and thanked me for what I do everyday. Ever since then we have stayed in touch. He is one of those kids that if he sees a student doing something wrong he will point it out because he knows how hard our job can be. All the custodians here wish every student would be the bigger person to point out something they see that could help us out in any way,” Cooper said.
As an example, there are two student workers that help out at night and they see how much of an impact it makes to be a student that participates in doing the right thing to keep our school tidy and clean.
Prior to working at our school, Cooper had pursued a different path from janitorial duties. He worked in retail management before he committed his career towards helping students at our school.
“I started in retail management for 13 years and one day the company said they were going in a different direction. I had done custodial work for my father as a kid because he had a janitorial service. I came to Kickapoo because they always say once a Chief, always a Chief,” Cooper said.
Though Cooper has had his ups and downs over the last 19 years, his tenure at our school is coming to an end.
“I plan on retiring soon, as of September 1st I could have retired from SPS, but I plan on going three more years here,” Cooper said.
Cooper is a prime example of what it means to put all of your effort into your profession while being a wholehearted person.
Everyone involved with our school will miss Cooper when he retires. He doesn’t just bring joy to the staff as he does an amazing job being a custodian, but he makes students enjoy their time at school by keeping it clean and being there for any student who may cross his path.
