The staff at Park High is struggling to keep up with the school’s needs due to being so short-handed. There are many staff members working extra hard to do the work of multiple people. Custodian Debbie Miller was interviewed and described how much work is going into keeping the school clean and maintained.

Miller is doing a lot more than one person should be doing because like many other departments, custodial is understaffed, she explains “I’ve got one and a half guys on my night shift, which I should have four full time”. This makes it incredibly hard for her to clean everything consistently, she goes on to explain that typically things get cleaned daily, but are now having to be cleaned only twice a week simply because there is not enough staff doing the job.

Having a tight schedule and just keeping up with the mandatory cleaning causes other areas to lack. Miller shares that there is simply not enough time for the little details such as the trophy case, the water fountains, maintenance, giving the floors a good scrub, and many more. She shares that teachers, such as math teacher Drew Fuller, are very helpful in keeping their rooms clean and the office staff will vacuum in between the times that she can get in there to clean.

Helpful staff is truly appreciated by Debbie Miller and the custodial staff, but sometimes the students aren’t as helpful. Miller talks about the vandalism in the boys’ bathroom being truly disheartening. She works so hard to keep up with the overflow of tasks; when she sees damages done by students, it can be frustrating. She said that Park High is a great school and students should want to help take care of it. Things like throwing garbage away, disposing of gum correctly, and not damaging school property should be easy decisions.

Debbie Miller and the other Park High staff are working hard to keep things running smoothly, despite the school being short-handed.