School system looks to clean mess left by fewer janitors
A plan to clean up the messes caused by a reduction in school system janitors was passed by the Warren County Board of Education last week.
The plan, according to school system human resource director Roy Pierce, will both produce cleaner schools and give county custodians more reliable paychecks.
Some county principals complained last year that their schools were dirtier than in years past. This was caused, they said, by a school board-approved, cost-saving plan which reduced the number of county custodians from 65 to 41. At the same time, the plan reduced their time worked from 12 months to 11 months.
Aside from being generally understaffed, the principals said that forcing all of their remaining custodians to take a month off exacerbated their cleaning problems as many of the custodians would take their required time off at the same time. Occasionally, this led to having only one custodian at a school.
For the custodians, the plan was also unpopular, as the ones who were not laid off lost a month of pay over the year, money which was not reduced evenly, leaving them without reliable paychecks.
The plan passed by the school board last week still has custodians working 11 months out of the year. But instead of taking 30 days off, the board has custodians working 37.5 hours a week. Over the course of a year, that 2.5 hours adds up to 15 days.
The remaining 15 days, said Pierce, could be taken during days students are not in school, including teacher in-service days and holidays. He noted while the plan would do much to help the situation at some county schools, it is not mandatory and that it may be implemented at each principal’s discretion.
In a related matter, the school board also recently approved a proposal of system maintenance department director Donnie Caldwell to permanently post at least one full-time maintenance worker at each county school.
This, Caldwell said, will be much more efficient than the old system, which had a single worker responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of up to five schools. The new measure came about, he added, as a result of an increased emphasis on preventive maintenance.
“The need for preventive maintenance is becoming bigger every year as we’re having to address code issues and TOSHA guidelines more and more. We’re also being inspected by insurance companies on a more regular basis,” Caldwell said. “Some don’t think there’ll be enough for a maintenance worker to do at all schools, but on top of ordinary work orders and daily checks, and inspections they’ll be kept pretty busy.”