Students wouldn鈥檛 be able to thrive if the cafeteria, hallways, bathrooms, and classrooms weren鈥檛 clean enough to learn and work. The role of custodians is critical鈥攐ne district leader even called them the 鈥渦nsung heroes鈥� of education.
In schools across the country, custodians do more than keep campuses clean. Earlier this year, for example, Andy Markus, a custodian in Utah, was named the National Education Support Professional of the Year by the National Education Association for his mentoring, which has improved students鈥� behavior and academic engagement.
And when custodians stay at a school for years, they develop expertise and institutional knowledge that can be invaluable, school leaders say. But often, schools face problems with keeping these employees, in part due to low pay.
In one notable example, 30,000 custodians, bus drivers, teacher aides, and other support staff in Los Angeles went on a three-day strike over low wages in 2023. This action resulted in a 30% wage increase and a retroactive pay increase between $4,000 and $8,000.
However, even with the increases in pay for some districts, the average school custodian made $17.10 an hour or $35,564 a year in 2024, according to . In addition, most custodians don鈥檛 work full-time, which can create unsustainable situations for many workers.
Charles Ogdan, the director of secondary teaching and learning for the Forest Hills school district in Cincinnati, conducted a project on custodian retention and growth for his school district. He spoke to Education Week about the importance of custodians and how to best support them.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Could you explain the role of a school custodian?
A great building custodian is like glue. It just keeps everything together. When a custodian owns a building and treats it like their house鈥攌eeping it clean and keeping it running and maintained鈥攖here鈥檚 hardly anything better from a cultural standpoint.
A lot of people don鈥檛 realize the impact that a custodian has鈥攚hether it鈥檚 the boiler operating room, the chiller operating room, or the filters being changed in said boilers and chillers, plumbing, maintenance of the cove base, waxing of the floors, painting on the walls, or a cafeteria getting cleaned up three times a day. I can鈥檛 say enough about a custodian in a building.
How do custodians learn and develop their skills throughout their careers?
That鈥檚 going [to differ] district by district. Some will come to a school district with a skill set or a knowledge base. What we鈥檙e working on at Forest Hills, which was a big part of my project, is doing an inventory of our custodial staff of what skills they have. For example, HVAC skills, forklift skills, and mechanical skills.
One of the visions of my project is to create targeted professional development for custodians on those professional development days. On those days, a lot of times, custodians are playing catch-up.
[Say it鈥檚] a half a day, and we take Chuck, who has said, 鈥淚鈥檓 good with my hands, but I鈥檝e never anchored a screw into cinder block,鈥� and we take Jennifer, who is really good with her hands, but she would love to learn how to do some mild plumbing. We set up targeted intervention, targeted training so that they can grow their skill set.
If they feel they鈥檙e being invested in, theoretically, that should increase our retention. And then it also helps you lead to the growth of custodians within your district, to a head custodian and potentially to maintenance or a supervisor. So then you create a 鈥済row your own鈥� [program].
What makes an experienced custodian?
There are multiple shifts within the custodian鈥檚 day. For example, our elementary [schools] have two shifts: the first and the second shift. But our high and middle schools have the first, second, and third shifts because of how long our buildings are open.
A good custodian is somebody who watches over their building, meaning they鈥檙e going to take care of it. They鈥檙e going to know when something needs attention, to create a good system within whatever shift they鈥檙e in. And they鈥檙e going to understand what use of [cleaning] chemicals works for what situation. They鈥檙e going to be able to assess specific situations and, if they have the authority or the autonomy to fix something. [They鈥檙e going] to fix things when they need fixing, or minimally, let either the head custodian or maintenance know that something needs to be fixed.
Sometimes our third shift custodians are on third shift because they want to be on third shift, so they don鈥檛 have a ton of human interaction throughout the course of their shift. But our first and second shift custodians [tend to] have some good people skills to interact with staff, community members, and students.
A head custodian has to be all those [qualities] plus a really good communicator; they have to be extremely organized. They have to be able to anticipate things before they have [occurred] or be prepared for what could happen.
What are some of the challenges affecting the retention of school custodians?
We lost 53% of our custodians in the last three years to retirement. We are not seeing a number of people graduating high school or in the age range of 18 to 24 getting into the custodial business.
Part of it is a bit of a stigma among recent high school graduates. In our district, 70% of our kids go to college upon graduation. [Getting] a good, steady job with a good pension and benefits is not emphasized as much as it used to be.
Going into the workforce as a custodian, potentially at the school you went to, [can be hard]. I haven鈥檛 done it here, but I did some of that in a former district, and we would cycle them down to elementary schools to make sure they鈥檙e not with students they went to high school with. [Otherwise], if somebody pukes in the hallway, they鈥檙e going to show up with the sand and clean it up, and those are people they went to school with a year ago.
As far as retention, we鈥檙e not the only industry hurting. Public education can offer a competitive wage, a consistent wage, and excellent retirement and good benefits, but due to COVID, everybody was hurt.
But ... we can鈥檛 just raise salaries. Private industry or corporations can potentially pay more for an employee鈥檚 wage [as inflation increases]. We can鈥檛 do that in Ohio, not until you go back to the voters.
What do you think would help with retention and growth for custodians?
A big thing that we are looking at doing is creating a cadence around professional development with days that are already built into our instructional calendar and then creating additional cadence to get feedback from our custodians. What are some things that we could do to improve? What are some growth opportunities? What are your desires?
We sent a survey to all 44 of our custodians. Only 27 responded. Then, I did a one-on-one with each head custodian to dig into the answers. Thirty percent of respondents said they鈥檙e not interested in promotions or overtime, they鈥檙e good where they鈥檙e at. Not everybody is going to have an interest in growing or elevating.
Custodians holistically enjoy their jobs and take ownership of their respective buildings with pride. Head custodians find themselves losing some sleep during certain times of the year due to the volume of responsibility they shoulder of the three shifts. This was a huge takeaway.
There鈥檚 no built-in time where shifts overlap. To have any standardized feedback or collaboration, it鈥檚 not built into the schedule. The head custodian has to decide to show up early or stay late. A majority of our respondents shared that they do have specific skills, such as drywalling, plumbing, electrical, construction, mechanical work, forklift operating, etc. We were able to come away with some really good information.
What鈥檚 the difference between custodial and maintenance jobs?
There are custodians and maintenance workers. Sometimes that relationship goes very well in a district. Sometimes it can be a little adversarial.
For example, let鈥檚 say a pencil sharpener is ripped off the wall in a classroom鈥攖hat鈥檚 pretty light maintenance. You might have to re-drill the holes, but you just put new screws in it and install it. If there isn鈥檛 a good understanding of that, custodians could say, 鈥淲ell, that鈥檚 not my job. That鈥檚 a maintenance job.鈥� Maintenance would be irritated because they have to come to a school and hang a pencil sharpener, when they should probably be out working on some pumps and bigger items.
We have those [roles] pretty clearly defined here. Maintenance gets paid at a higher level than custodians. So, if you level up to maintenance, it鈥檚 a district level position, so you鈥檙e going from building to building, and it鈥檚 a higher pay scale.
Is there anything else that you want to mention?
The reason I did this work on custodians is [because] everything really hot in society right now is either on paraprofessionals, bus drivers, or teachers. Custodians are a lot of times the forgotten and unsung heroes.
I spent a lot of time as a building principal, and [custodians] do a lot, and they don鈥檛 get thanked enough. I took it on as my personal mission to make sure not only did we appreciate them, but we leaned into the why and the how, and then really hoping to come away [with] something positive, specifically in our district, to retain and grow our custodians.
This research is just the starting line, so I鈥檓 excited to see where it goes.
