“I think a custodian is someone who takes care of the building and maintains it,” said Aditi Gandhi ‘27 when asked what a custodian means to her. More often than not, people don’t think twice about when items that were broken the day before miraculously are fixed the next day. Students walk into the brightly illuminated school without thinking twice. Teachers step through the gaping doors of the Upper School without thinking twice. Students and faculty walk on the freshly cleaned floors. Without. Thinking. Twice. So, who exactly is in charge of maintaining the school? The custodians.
Jason Gronlund, the Upper School’s Interim Maintenance Lead, discussed his role at the school. “So, being the lead maintenance guy…kind of means that I oversee the whole building: projects, anywhere as from say if a teacher puts in something that is broken, I have to go to the room and fix it.”
“It’s all the little things that you don’t even think about like trash duty, just all the handyman stuff between the kitchen, all the hallways, alarms, stuff like that,” Gronlund said. Though their work often goes unnoticed, custodians’ work is imperative to keeping the campus clean, organized, and safe.
Gronlund works from Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. His morning consists of “walking around, opening up all the buildings, unlocking doors, turning on lights, checking alarm panels, making sure everything is set for the morning.”
The school works off of a request system meaning that when extra maintenance is required, the teacher or faculty member will send a request via email to have it taken care of. Aside from ensuring that the building is being well-kept and maintained, custodians also ensure certain events occurring within the building are flowing with ease.
Gronlund illustrates, “Other than [repairing], it’s just setting up for different events… cleaning them up, [and] just trying to keep the building running as best as possible.”
Despite lacking knowledge of who custodians are, their work is extremely important and is arguably the face of the school’s success.
