cleaning the classroom

[mamaduck]

Our school requires parents to clean the classroom, and do all the maintance on the building/grounds. We just did our big end of the year workday -- but my spouse and I also clean ds's classroom about once a month.

Does anyone else do this?

Do public school teachers have to clean/organize their own classroom? If so, where do they find the freaking time?

I was just amazed and overwhelmed by the amount of rinky diny junk. I ended up throwing away tons and tons of stuff because I didn't know what else to do with it. Homework and elaborate reports that nobdy took home. Clothing. silverware.

And parents constantly donate stuff they think might be useful someday. Empty cardboard boxes and milk jugs. There were seriously several hundred empty yogurt containers. Way more than could be useful in the near future. I felt badly about everything I threw out -- but it never would have been a clean room if I hadn't thrown some stuff away. I tried to organize as much of it into bins on the shelves as I could. It was just crazy.

Is this typical? Gah.

[mommy22]

In our school, the children help out with everyday stuff...sweeping, dusting, emptying garbage. But most of the hard work falls on the teacher. This year we are instituting a work day for the parents. This is mainly because we are a newer school, and still have new classrooms every year that need to be moved into. I think it's a great way for parents to stay connected to school and for the children to take some responsibility for their environment.

[mamaduck]

Yeah, kids at our school have daily "jobs" too. But the organizational stuff is beyond them. Heck, its beyond me!

[LunaMom]

Wow, this a requirement at a public school? My dd's preschool is a co-op so families are responsible for clean-up and maintenance days at the beginning and end of the school year. But I've never heard of this at a public school. Sheesh, when I was teaching, I was lucky if I could find moms to help with ANYTHING. I cleaned out my entire room every June and set it up every Septemeber with no help at all (well, the students helped in June). As far as all the accumulated junk, I can understand that. So many teachers get so little in the way of supplies, and wind up spending their own money on things. So every empty coffee can (a pencil holder! a paintbrush holder! a vase!) becomes something valuable, KWIM?

[mamaduck]

I'm sorry, I should have said -- no, its a co-op school!

But it made me wonder what public schools do to keep clean and organized classrooms.

[fullofhope]

What do we do? We spend hours and hours past our contract time cleaning, organizing, planning, meeting with parents, and more! It kinda comes with the territory. I'm lucky if I can get parents to show up for an IEP meeting, much less come in to help clean/organize! I think it is wonderful that your school is set up as such, and that you took the time to voice your view that it is so much work- many people don't realize what we public school teachers do to support our students' learning, they just see that we "don't work a full year like everyone else". Thanks for the acknowledgement!

Janel

edited to add: I made it sound like we do ALL the cleaning; we do have WONDERFUL custodians, a school couldn't run without those incredibly brave souls! But they do the floors, trash, and table/desktops, plus any big spills, but the rest is up to us.

[bestjob]

My grade 3 daughter has not had the most wonderful teacher in the world this year, but one thing I can say for her is that she really gets the kids moving on looking after not only their own stuff, but the group things as well. She even has them tidying up her desk! Her organization is amazing, and her room always looks great. When I was teaching some of the grade 3 kids about plants, she let us use her windows for our tomatoes and cucumbers, so she is not a total minimalist, just very organized. One thing that she did this year was give the kids a huge art project to work on for three weeks before March Break. All the desks were squished into the corner for that whole period of time and the rest of the room was a giant studio. Before that and since then, they drew pictures, which isn't all that messy. It meant that nothing else got done during those three weeks, but they loved it, and the results were truly outstanding.

My son's nursery school is in the basement of a church and the teachers have to put away everything every single day, except for the artwork on the bulletin boards. Just before snack the children help pack up all the toys and put them away, except for the books that will be read while waiting for the parents to pick them up. The teachers still manage to set up a great, stimulating, room, and they have a separate gym with climbing apparatus two times a week. Art goes home on Thursdays and Fridays. It teaches the parents responsiblity... if it isn't picked up, it goes in the garbage.

Both these systems show the importance of organization and adult leadership in giving the children responsibility to tidy up their classrooms.

[Rhonwyn]

Parents help clean the classrooms at our Waldorf School.

The children help during the week everyday and then on the weekends, parents who have signed up, help clean the classroom with the teacher. Each class does it a little differently. Some parents hire another set of parents to clean for them or the parents get together and hire cleaners to come in every weekend and clean. As the children get older, they do more cleaning.

[mamaduck]

I was going to ask -- could we really expect 1st and 2nd graders to keep their classroom organized? Return books to the shelf in alphabetical order, maintain organized systems for keeping the little buttons, and sea shells, and puff balls, and yarn, and fabric scraps, and beads, and yogurt cups, and all the little sorting objects for math, all the playing cards, etc...

I dunno. Its really hard for *me* to go in and try to figure out how and where to organize all this stuff. And new things are constantly presenting themselves. The kids empty the trash cans, the pencil sharpeners, clean up the toys, sweep the floors, wipe down the tables, etc.. I'm not sure much more could be expected of 6-8 year olds.

[CAmomto1]

When I taught in public schools, I was lucky if my floors got swept/vacuumed daily. The trash was emptied every day, though. I pretty much did everything else if I wanted it done more than once per year.

[anythingelse]

When I was teaching - we had a great janitorial staff. They would come a mop immediately if a kid peed the floor or clear the vomit. Everyday they swept and took out the trash, would help me carry in heavy stuff from my car from the lot etc.. our little classroom had the bathrooms in it and kids always peed on the floor too and Steve was there to wipe it up. School was low income so parents did not send in stuff or leave stuff behind as in full lost and found. Kids always had potty trouble cause they were not used to our food, school served hot breakfast and lunch & everyone ate, most kids were from Laos or Vietnam, some hispanic and the cook staff was all hispanic so these poor kids that were used to a cup of rice would get fried churizo burritos for breakfast and have gas/runs all day. After about three months they would start getting used to the foods and learning a little english. My first teaching job class had kids speaking Laotian, burmese, chinese, and spanish, only four kids spoke english as first language. Most spoke no english, there was no way you could have them clean a classroom or send a note home asking to save egg cartons and have parents be able to read it and I think the janitors really understood that. That was a long time ago lol

[bestjob]

When I read some of these posts, I realized that not all schools have janitorial staff. At my daughter's public school there is a janitor who works the day shift and another who works the evening shift. The children and teachers organize their classroom, with varying degees of success (ask a substitue teacher about that!) but most of the cleaning is done by the janitors. In my daughter's super-organized classroom this year, the children also wiped their desks daily and were expected to act promptly and independently if they found a mess.

[EFmom]

No, at my dd's public school at at the public school where dh teaches (different districts) parents are not expected to clean out classrooms.

The teachers deal with most of the stuff. Toward the end of the year, dd started bringing home tons of papers, art projects and stuff they'd done all year long. Frankly, I wish they would just throw out 99% of the stuff at school during the year, rather than making her carry it all home for me to throw out. She must have brought home every scrap of paper they'd used, every worksheet, every drawing, etc. Too much.

Dh is a hs science teacher. He has to straighten up the room and inventory the lab equipment. It is a major pain the neck. They do it on the last days of school, after the students no longer have to go in because the state exams are done, but the teachers are still required to work.

What is the biggest pain is that his classroom will get trashed all over again by the people who teach summer school and by other community groups who are allowed to use the classrooms over the summer. They are the worst. They steal and break all sorts of stuff. So, he ends up going to work about a week early to try to do some damage control before school starts.

[compleatmomof4]

My kids K and 1st grade supply list included

Originally posted by LunaMom
...So many teachers get so little in the way of supplies, and wind up spending their own money on things...

two reams of paper, sidewalk chalk, plastic storage containers, and a hula hoop!?! (I'm new to sending my kids to public school s I don't know if this is ordinary or not in the way of asking parents to bring in supplies.)

[EFmom]

In my kid's school they are given a supply list, but it's things like pencils, glue, crayons, notebooks, folders and scissors. For communal consumption they are all asked to bring in a box of tissues and a few packs of stickers. The teacher will then open one box of tissues at a time for the class to use. Last year, dd was asked to bring in various items for craft projects--paper towel rolls, plastic strawberry containers, and a biggish photoalbum (only really significant expense). But the teachers did take and print out lots of photos and the albums were a very wonderful keepsake of her kindergarten year.

Even so, I know for a fact that the teachers still end up spending a whole lot of their own money on stuff.

[Britishmum]

Mamaduck you asked "I was going to ask -- could we really expect 1st and 2nd graders to keep their classroom organized? Return books to the shelf in alphabetical order, maintain organized systems for keeping the little buttons, and sea shells, and puff balls, and yarn, and fabric scraps, and beads, and yogurt cups, and all the little sorting objects for math, all the playing cards, etc... "

My answer would be Yes, Yes and Yes!

But of course the teacher has to have good organisation and systems to help the children to tidy, and needs to teach them how to do it.

To be honest, I'd never have asked - or wanted - anyone but me and my class to tidy my room. I"m not talking about cleaning (that was always done by cleaners or the caretaker after school), but tidying and organising.

It was always a bugbear of mine that I almost never moved into a room from another teacher that was organised or tidy - but I always left my room immaculate for the next teacher. Grrr.


I know that many teachers keep piles of stuff 'just in case' but imo clutter just lessens the usefulness of your space. After all, if you need yoghurt pots, all you need to do is ask on a Friday and generally you'll have 20 by Monday morning - you don't need three hundred stuffed in various places under the shelves!!

IME the best teachers usually have well organised, uncluttered classrooms. (Note the word 'usually') And their classes know how to take care of things and keep it that way. It just shows a general respect and care about the environment and other people.

This is bringing back too many memories for me! I need to go to surf Diapering!

[journeymom]

clutter just lessens the usefulness of your space

I totally agree!

My son is in a public school parent participation preschool. I guess otherwise known as a co-op. We did a end of year "deep clean" and I thought, "Oh, goody! They'll finally get rid of the broken and obsolete rubbish!" Bins and bags and coffee cans of craft products no body ever uses, that simply collect dust. But no! That stuff wasn't even touched. They did get rid of a few yucky old toys. Don't misunderstand. This school is packed to the rafters with toys, manipulatives, crafts, etc. They want for nothing. It just makes the place dirty all the time. It can never be thoroughly clean.

I was shocked to hear that a janitor does come to the preschool. I never heard if it's daily or weekly. But I literally could not tell if a janitor had been there, because the parents do all the cleaning and I can tell if it's been cleaned above and beyond the normal.

We also do all the maintanence of the grounds and buildings. Parents who can afford it have done big upgrades. One parent paid to have a long, concrete bike trail installed in the play yard. Very cute, and the kids use it constantly. But I swear, some of the tricycles are so old I probably used them when I was in Kindergarten (I went to the same school .) They weigh a ton! Get rid of them, already! It's not as though there aren't enough trikes.

Now dd is 8 y.o. and finished 2nd grade last year. Same public school district as ds. Her school has two full time janitors. They vacuum every single classroom daily, plus all the other regular janitor stuff. It bugged the heck out of me that the sink in her class room was always, always dirty and paint stained. So one time I brought my own can of Comet and a sponge and tried to scrub it out. Well, it really is stained. Most of it wouldn't come out. Also, the teachers and janitors aren't allowed to use bleach products in the classrooms.

They always send a list home of required stuff at the beginning of the year: pencils, crayons, markers, glue sticks. And her 1st grade teacher asked for donations of disposable wipes, the Clorox type. She used them to wipe down the desks. I had no problem providing this stuff for my daughter to use, but midway through the year it was clear that they didn't need half of it anyway. Why did she ask them to bring glue sticks when she already had a large supply of them? Same with markers. She already had a big wash bin full of markers.

Ah well. Dd has had two great teachers at this school, so I can't complain too much.