MACON, Ga. — I'm sure we all know the habit of sticking gum underneath the desk, and whether you actually did it or not, you may have never thought of the people who have to clean it up afterwards. Actually, a lot goes into cleaning schools, especially over the summer.
"From the day students and teachers leave, we start tearing the school down," Bibb County Schools Maintenance Coordinator Keith Walker said.
Classroom furniture in the hallways, cleaning supplies and maintenance equipment everywhere is all part of the process of their massive cleaning operation.
"Removing all the furniture, stripping and waxing the floors, and just doing an overall sweep of the entire building," Walker said.
Room by room, he supervises over 160 employees to deep clean the district's 37 schools each summer.
"It's only about 5 or 6 people in a building at a time, so we have to do it in zones. It could take up to a month depending on the crew and how large the building is -- every building is different sizes," he said.
"Schools take their fair share of wear and tear and it requires a degree of continual cleaning and sanitation," Bibb County Chief of Staff Keith Simmons said.
They set aside a pretty hefty part of the budget to keep their schools up.
"Probably about $3 million annually, what we spend on the staff as well as the cleaning supplies and such," he said.
The International Sanitary Supply Association lists water fountains, computer keyboards, and toilets as 3 of the top bacteria hot spots in schools, but as for picking gum from under the desks, "I hate to say this, but if we could we would, but we would have to have a dump truck to haul it all off," Walker said.
Simmons says Bibb County Schools average about 94% on their annual cleanliness inspection.