Long after students go home for the day, Lab remains open past midnight as a special group of individuals works to maintain the school grounds for the next morning. 

The evening custodial staff is an unrecognized but essential part of the personnel who keep Lab’s facilities safe, clean and usable. We often don’t see or acknowledge those working behind the scenes to improve our lives at school, so it’s important to appreciate the hard work that the custodial staff performs each day. 

The evening custodial crew is staffed by contractor ABM, and multiple teams work long and late shifts to clean and manage the high school, middle school and lower school — second shift cleaners work 4 p.m. to 12:30 a.m daily, and a third shift crew cleans the gymnasium from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

From sweeping the hallways to managing classrooms and bathrooms, the custodial crew has numerous and essential responsibilities maintaining the school that we often overlook when going about our day-to-day lives, such as making sure all trash cans are emptied.

The custodial staff is always cordial and polite to students while being considerate to the school’s property. My encounters with them have always been nice, as they’re always opening doors and checking to make sure no one is using the classrooms before cleaning up.

So the next time you see a member of the ABM staff cleaning up after school, stop for a moment, say thank you, and most of all, make sure to clean up after yourself. It’s the right thing to help those making a difference in our community.