When summer comes around, students might want to avoid school, but juniors Ella Henkel and Jancye Long spent a large portion of their time at school helping clean the Yutan elementary and high school. 

The job provided many benefits, including the amount they got paid during the process.

“If I worked six hours, I got about $96 a day, and overall, I got about $2600,” Henkel said.

Besides the money, another reason they chose the job was scheduling.

“Working there was really easy because it was so close to home, I didn’t have to spend money on gas and the hours were really flexible,” Long said.

Because of the flexible schedule, Long’s and Henkel’s days looked different.

“In the mornings, I would go to my sports activities, and then I would have club activities towards the end of the day. So I would work from 10 a.m. to like 3 p.m.,” Long said.

Since Henkel was involved in different activities, the time they got to work and left work varied.

“My bosses were very flexible. I would come to work after lifting in the morning, and then I would get off work before all of my sports activities,” Henkel said.

While the flexible hours were a perk, the job itself was challenging.

“We cleaned every single classroom from top to bottom, so everything got cleaned besides personal belongings,” Henkel said.

Most of the time, Henkel and Long would work together on tasks throughout the day.

“A typical day would be showing up and asking Lori (the head custodian) what to do and then doing simple tasks like washing the walls with a mop, scraping things off the baseboards and cleaning the furniture in the classrooms,” Long said.

It wasn’t just cleaning dirty spots, gum or marker off desks; it was also about the memories made during the process.

“We were cleaning the art room at the elementary, and when Jancye turned on the sink, water started coming out of the bottom of the wood. Then I just had to stand there with a trash can under the sink letting it drain because the sink was broken, so that was really funny,” Henkel said.

Some of the most memorable moments were minor setbacks.

“One time we were going to refill a mop bucket and that consisted of dumping the old water to get new water,” Long said. “We completely missed the drain and water went everywhere and we had to scramble to clean up the mess before anyone else would notice.”

Lori Callahan, the head custodian for Yutan and science teacher Megan Encarnacion’s mom, worked with Henkel and Long and taught both students valuable lessons from the job.

“I’ve learned how to clean different types of stains off different textures of walls, desks, floors and baseboards,” Henkel said.

“I’ve learned how to work with other people and understand how other people work compared to me,” Long said.

They also learned the satisfaction of seeing their hard work when they came back for the school year.

“It felt good to know that I helped clean the whole school and made sure that it was a good environment for all the kids,” Henkel said.