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Photo by Elliot J. Sutherland/The Ottawa Herald
David Bethea, custodial engineer at Ottawa High School, sanitizes a desk Tuesday morning at the high school, 1120 S. Ash St. Bethea and a crew of 37 other custodial and maintenance workers spend the summer months cleaning and preparing the school for another year of students.
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No summer break for school district's maintenance workers
By ELLIOT J. SUTHERLAND, Herald Photographer
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Photo by Elliot J. Sutherland/The Ottawa Herald
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Jeff McAdoo, physical education teacher and seasonal maintenance worker at Ottawa USD 290, scrapes water-damaged plaster from under a window at Eugene Field Elementary School, 720 S. Tremont Avenue, Ottawa, Tuesday morning. The school district has an additional 12 seasonal workers to help keep on top of things this summer.
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Hallways that usually echo with the sounds of bustling students instead are filled this summer with the sounds of scrubbing, painting and waxing at Ottawa schools.
Maintenance crews are hard at work across the district preparing area schools for another year of students.
“We are in the middle of a deep clean this summer,” Richard Smith, director of operations at USD 290, said.
Workers move all the furniture out of every classroom then wax, paint and shampoo as needed, Smith said.
“We clean everything, from top to bottom,” Geno Dydell, custodial engineer at Ottawa High School, said as he and a crew of workers sanitized desks, chairs and bookshelves Tuesday morning at the high school
“It’s a big job. It takes all summer and even then, our job is never done,” Marshall Silvui, Dydell’s co-worker, said.
The school district currently has more than 42 active projects “...and more than that have already been done,” Smith said.
Major projects for this summer include the installation of a new boiler at Eugene Field Elementary, improving water drainage at the high school soccer field and installing security cameras at the middle school.
It takes 26 full-time employees and 12 seasonal workers to keep on top of all the projects.
“We basically use the summers to do projects that we can’t do with the students around,” Smith said. “Work during the school year has been more reactionary, things like cleaning up spills and fixing broken doorknobs. During the summer we can do a major overhaul.”
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