This is the third year I’ve been working at this school. Up until now, my blackboards have been cleaned on a pretty regular basis. This year, however, 8 weeks into the school year my board hasn’t been washed once. I put a note in the head custodian’s mailbox for my blackboard to be cleaned.
Well, they decided in addition to the blackboard, they’d wash the dry erase whiteboard too. Whatever they washed it with fucked it up to the point where now, it does not erase at all, even with chemical cleaners. It’s now completely unusable, but it’s half my instructional space and I used it daily.
This is a problem. I leave a note for the head custodian, no reply for 2 weeks, so I talk to my supervisor, the Assistant Principal. He comes down, sees what I mean, pages the custodians and shows them.
Right in my face, the custodian guy says, “That was never a dry erase board. She had that all covered up with paper until now. I have no idea what she’s talking about.” When I contradict him, he calls down two other janitors who back him up and insist that it never erased.
This is total fucking bullshit, and clearly he’s only saying it b/c he or one of his guys is responsible for ruining the whiteboard and they don’t want to own up to it. I have 20 students in my room who are going, “Umm, that’s the homework board! She uses it every day!” But the guy insists and looks at me like I’m crucifying his kitten.
Frankly, I don’t give a crap about the blame game, and I wasn’t pointing any fingers. I just need a surface to write on, hoped maybe it could be fixed? What can be done about this? The AP and the custodians leave, and about 10 minutes later, I go to talk to the AP in his office. As I turn the corner, I see that there are 3 custodians in his office and they’re in the middle of saying, “We have NO IDEA what she’s talking about. That board hasn’t been used in YEARS! It has NEVER been dry erase!”
Basically, these assholes are lying, and what’s really stupid is, the AP knows it b/c he’s in my room several times a year and knows it’s the homework board. Not to mention the myriad students who have seen me use the board and were voicing this fact during this conversation. Fortunately, the AP is not an idiot and knows exactly what’s going on, so these lying dicks didn’t actually get me in trouble, but I still don’t have the boards to write on, through no fault of my own, and now have apparently pissed off the entire custodial staff in the process.
Anyway, nothing gets done about any of this. AND, to make matters worse, the head custodian shows up the next day and says that I must have cleaned the board with the wrong stuff, OR I’m using the wrong markers. He actually makes me take out the marker and show him. When I do this and the marks don’t come off even with Windex, he falls back on this “it’s not a dry erase board anyway” when IT MOST DEFINITELY WAS before they cleaned it.
Then a memo comes out saying that the custodians are officially no longer washing whiteboards OR blackboards ever again and we have to do it ourselves from now on. This is somehow my fault, I guess. They’ve also decided that they only have to empty our trash cans once a week, even the rooms where kids eat lunch sometimes, even in science labs where organic material is dumped. Gross.
WTF? I realize they have a hard job, but you know, things are tough all over. I never asked for any of this. I just want my blackboard washed once a month whether it needs it or not. If I had known it was my job to do it, I’d have done it a long time ago and avoided this whole debacle. I never asked for my whiteboard to be washed and I didn’t ruin it-- I just want a place to write the homework! I can’t believe so many people would lie so flagrantly, right in my face, to my boss, in front of 20 witnesses who know they’re lying. And the retaliation has been murder. Again I say, WTF!
If you’ve read all of this, you deserve a medal. I just needed to vent my incredulous rage at all the fucking lying that I have witnessed, and that it all has somehow become a justification for them doing less work. And I do realize that I’m screwed now b/c the custodial staff hates me. :mad: All I wanted was a clean blackboard.
