AFTER HOURS

after hours Custodians share their experiences taking care of the school campus

ARTICLE BY KATHERINE NGUYEN • DESIGN BY EVELYN RAMIREZ

COVER PHOTO BY KRISTIAN CROWTHER • PHOTOS BY KATHERINE NGUYEN

It is an hour after school has ended. Hallways once fooded with laughter and the chatter of students have gone quiet. What remains on campus is the trash they leave behind.

Since the establishment of UPA, the custodial staff from the Cathedral of Faith has cleaned the school campus in the mornings and after school hours. Rocio Cermeño, a custodian who has worked for 14 years, cleans both buildings.

¨It affects us physically because we have to do it twice and we go out more tired,” Cermeño said.

Brian Rodriguez, a custodian who has worked for a year and a half, was invited by his supervisor, Cesar Cruz, to work for the church. He took the job opportunity as a means of supporting his family living in Mexico.

“I can [work] from Mexico, but it is not the same as living here for a year and going to [work in] Mexico for two weeks,” Brian Rodriguez said. “All I can do is work as much as I can.” His schedule consists of cleaning the frst foor in the Horton Youth Center from Monday to Friday. He generally avoids engaging and conversing with students as much as possible. “I don’t get involved. It’s like a rule,” Brian Rodriguez said. “Not to speak with the people much because you can interpret things wrong.”

Solis Yesenia is another custodial staff who took the job opportunity after leaving her former employment as a restaurant waitress where she worked in a pressured environment.

“[Over here] you don’t have a boss behind you,” Yesenia said. “You do the job yourself and no one tells you to do it.”

Since coming to work for the Cathedral of Faith, she has encountered diffculties when engaging with the UPA community.

“The truth is that there are many people who are not friendly here or even teachers that I have seen that I would like to be nicer,” Yesenia said. “You say ‘hello’ and they don’t answer you.”

Although most students are well behaved, she hopes that UPA students will become more aware of keeping their surroundings clean. During the 15 months that she has worked so far, Yesenia has witnessed the aftermaths of property damage by the students.

“They throw wet paper on the ceiling, scratch the walls, break part of the wall—they made a hole,” Yesenia said. “They took the dumpster out of the bathroom, and dumped soap all over the foor [too].”

Social science teacher Ariana Rodriguez frequently arrives at school early and stays late, often seeing the custodians at work. In the past, she has observed students who carelessly create messes, relying on the custodians to clean up for them. “I think that it’s their job to a degree, but for the most part, the students should be responsible for cleaning up their own garbage,” Ariana Rodriguez said. “It shouldn’t be their job to have to pick up after our laziness.”

Another diffculty custodians have faced is their long schedules. As soon as they start cleaning after school, their work can last up to midnight, depending on how late events end. Custodian Flor Torebeo, who has worked for two and a half years, feels the late hours have affected her relationship with her family.

“We can’t see our children during the day,” Torebeo said. “They’re at school in the morning and then they come [back home] and we’re going to work.”

Although the custodians share their complaints about their work, they also enjoy certain benefts they receive.

“The benefts [make] the difference. The insurance and the [paid time off] vacations that pay [us],” Cermeño said.

The custodians are not the only ones that receive benefts. According to journalism teacher Laura Gordon Reska, the custodians’ work has relieved the responsibility of cleaning her own classroom.

“When I came to UPA, I was amazed at the fact that someone would wipe down my desks for me, and that they would dust my bookshelf, instead of [leaving] a one-inch layer of dust,” Reska said.

However, not all of the staff plan to work for the Cathedral of Faith forever. Yesenia aspires to start her own business to manage her own hours while other custodians wish to learn English to avoid language barriers.

“I’d like to start selling food, something small,” Yesenia said. “Like a store, with juices and fruits and all that.”

Despite working late hours and dealing with property damage, the custodial staff continues to maintain a sanitary environment where students can learn better.

“It’s like they’re the unsung heroes, I guess you could say, because they work behind the scenes,” Ariana Rodriguez said. “La verdad es que hay mucha gente que no es amable aquí o incluso maestros que yo he visto, que me gustaría que fueran mas amables. Les dices hola y no te contestan.” —Solis Yesenia

Cover: Solis Yesenia cleans a table in the Santa Clara classroom. Upper Left: Brian Rodriguez takes out the trash outside of Horton. Upper Right: Maria Gerbeceo vacuums the Carnegie classroom. Far Right: Cesar Cruz replaces a trash bag in the Princeton classroom. Opposite: Flor Torbeceo and Rocio Cermeño work together to clean the second foor of the Family Life Center.