In a school environment, it is the teachers and support staff who get praised during this pandemic, but during COVID, there is a group of people working hard to make sure the building spaces are safe enough for teachers and staff to do their jobs.

Meet your building maintenance staff. They are the unsung heroes during this time. They are front-line workers most at risk for COVID-19 because they cannot work from home. The team must go into all of the spaces in the school directly after students and staff and spend more time cleaning and disinfecting spaces to ensure a safe environment for everyone on campus. 

“It’s a lot of hard work. We stay really busy and we are shorthanded,” said Joe Vega.

“It’s rough because that takes a lot of time,” said one member of the crew, “There are a lot of pressures taking care of a school this size with such, strict COVID responsibilities. Yes, there’s a lot of pressure.” 

Deep cleaning, disinfecting, and scrubbing surface areas that hold onto potentially dangerous germs and viruses is not easy, “Well, normally when you go through and clean you just wipe the tables down. This time you can’t. You have to sanitize them, and then go back and wipe them so you’re actually doing twice the work,” said William Marcy.

Angel Aguilar is the site manager and feels true appreciation from students, “During this time of COVID kids have been so heartwarming stopping talking about all of the work that has gone into what it takes to get this building prepared and ready for them each day, they truly understand what it takes and how much hard work goes into the preparation of disinfecting prior to their arrival. Each day, it has been a tremendous amount of support from them.”

Aguilar and his team knew this year would bring challenges but no one knew how difficult it would be, “In the beginning, no one knew how long covid would hang around or the vigorous battle it would take to protect the health and well being of as many lives as possible, the end is hopefully beginning to appear off the distance.”

The school custodians and maintenance team are putting in more and more hours as more students returned to in-person learning, “Here at EHS from the moment it began, our ‘first line of defense’, school custodians pulled together and worked very hard to prepare the building for the return of students and staff, disinfecting every contact area insight.”

Aguilar is thankful every day for the dedication of this group of professionals, “This past year new light has been shed on their roles. Still to this day night after night as you walk through the hall you may hear the sound of the static sprayers hard at work or the jangling of keys roaming the building, Our buildings front line workers “Our silent heroes never stop. Hats off to all of them for keeping our building as safe as possible during this pandemic.”

Crew Members: 

William Marcy

Ed Delci

Joe Vega

Mike Campbell

Minnie Gehrig

Monica Niquette 

Eulalia Puentes

Teresa Serrano