They typically sweep, vacuum, take out the garbage, clean glass and straighten desks.

They also don't do the kitchen that's inspected by the health department and would mean too much responsibility, he said.Īnd they don't use any harsh chemicals - a bottle of Windex and a vacuum cleaner are their main tools. The students don't clean bathrooms or locker rooms, Karp said, because those are areas where gender could be an issue. Then they can take the school activity bus home, so no need to find their own transportation. The students are paid $15.30 an hour, the same rate a substitute janitor would earn. 'Now more kids are willing to give this thing a go,' Drewlo said. The college and career coordinator found a handful of kids who wanted to give the job a try, and now there are eight students who sign up for individual two-hour shifts online. The school has recently added square footage, making the need even more dire, he said. 'We were really limited to having zero other alternatives.' 'We were immediately on board,' Drewlo said. So he approached assistant principal Steve Drewlo with the idea to use students - preferably younger students who may not be able to find a job elsewhere - and asked him to suggest candidates. But he found that many of the young people interested in the job didn't have a driver's license. When the district could not fill three of its 10 full-time custodian positions at Blaine High, Karp said, he initially sought substitute after-school janitors. The district hopes to expand the program to other schools soon, Karp said. The result is a new program, piloted at Blaine High School, in which high school students clean classrooms for two hours each afternoon. It's a frustrating problem for Karp, who had a recent brainstorm for how to solve it: 'I said, what if we looked at the untapped potential of high school kids?' he said. The district is 18 custodians short of the 220 it typically employs, said Tom Karp, assistant director of buildings and grounds, and that means areas of buildings sometimes aren't cleaned as quickly as they should be right away. The Anoka-Hennepin School District - the state's largest - has been hit hard by pandemic-related employee shortages, including among the janitorial staff.

Blaine high school