As of September 2022, things have been looking up since the beginning of the new school year despite the hardships posed by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past couple of years; schedules are back to normal, no more Online School, IASAS athletics are now able to leave the country, and all clubs and after school activities have resumed their original plans.
Things Look a Little Bit Different For the Classified Staff
Looking at the work-life of staff at ISB from a different perspective, an ISB High School Mailrunner, Khun Nu, classified staff, claims that her typical life during the school year involves “cleaning and tidying up the campus overall, and delivering slips to students, usually taking around 15 minutes if there are many.” The initial thought of classified staff having similar work lives to other classified staff is only partially true. Although their work shift lasts around the usual duration of eight hours, “the tasks that [custodians] do is quite exhausting.” Especially during these past few months with safety and sanitation concerns, Buildings and Grounds (B&G) staff and security guards have been regulating COVID safety measures on school grounds, as well as ensuring that COVID protocols are being followed.
ISB guards work on 10-hour shifts every day–nine hours of work and one hour of break, and a lunch break at noon–sometimes a few of them even miss their break or lunch hours because they are needed elsewhere (M. Hevland, “Interview About Risk Management”, September 12, 2022). Likewise, the B&G staff work off of an identical work schedule. Khun Nu further mentions that her colleagues’ responsibilities involve “wiping down the door handles, vacuuming the rugs, mopping the floors, and things like that.”
Is “Summer Holiday” Somewhat Similar For Everyone?
Now, have we recently asked ourselves these questions: “Have I realized how much the custodians and guards work each day?” and “Have I expressed gratitude towards their consistent good intentions and diligent efforts?”, and more importantly, what are our answers to them? The majority of the readers may have “no” to at least one of these questions, and that is perhaps because we have not yet acknowledged them enough. Tibby Ounayakovit, a current sophomore who has been at ISB since second grade “assume[s] that their summer is slightly shorter than ours since they have to prepare for the school year,” and Dae Aung, a new student, also a tenth-grader, says that “[staff] probably have to go to school earlier than us, at least at one point, to prepare for sanitation and getting everything back into maintenance again.” Regardless of how long a student has been at ISB, they seem to not be fully aware of the number of work custodians and security guards do for our community. More specifically, Mark Hevland, the Director of Risk Management at ISB, explains that the guards are “responsible for all the workers coming in, checking all of the vehicles, doing routine patrols, checking to make sure that school property and resources aren’t getting damaged or misused,” and have to perform “a security lock daily during both the regular school year and summer break.”
This means that what we assumed as a “summer break”, is not actually a vacation for them as they are almost always on campus to keep checks and measures in place, day and night. Fortunately, if there are enough guards to look over a particular task, then the rest do not necessarily need to be on campus, and “if somebody needs a day off, then [there is] a way to make sure that that works.” Similarly, the custodians have to be on campus even during summer break to get all of the equipment and classrooms ready for the next school year, and clean and sanitize everything to lower the risk of infections on school grounds.
It Is Time to Acknowledge and Appreciate Their Hard Work
This has hopefully revealed the somewhat bitter truth about the classified staff’s work life and their so-called “break”. They work countless hours to maintain the school in sufficient conditions for anyone that enters the campus, so, the next time you see them around, be sure to express your gratitude as they would greatly appreciate it.