Desperate for janitors, Minnesota school district pays students $15 an hour to clean

A large Minnesota school district struggling with worker shortages is turning to an unusual labor pool for help: its student body.

As the biggest district in the state, the Anoka-Hennepin School District needs 220 custodians to keep its campuses clean and fit for learning, but it is 18 short, officials told the Star Tribune – and messes have been piling up as a result.

“There’s plenty of work for people to do and we didn’t have the personnel to do it,” Steve Drewlo, Blaine High School assistant principal, told North Metro TV. “We couldn’t do it, period.”

Desperate to fill the empty positions, administrator Tom Karp was struck by an idea; he told Star Tribune, “what if we looked at the untapped potential of high school kids?”

Soon after, the high school launched a pilot program, hiring students to clean for 2 to 4 hours after school.

“We were immediately on board,” Drewlo told the outlet. “We were really limited to having zero other alternatives.”

Students are paid the same wage as a substitute custodian, outlets reported.

A job posting by the school district shows substitute janitors make $15.30 an hour. Applicants must be at least 16 years old.

Students don’t clean bathrooms or locker rooms or the kitchen, outlets reported, and the more serious and potentially dangerous chemicals are reserved for the standard custodians. But everything else – sweeping, vacuuming, taking out the trash and so on – is all in the job description.

For students who can’t easily commute, working as a janitor at their school is no issue, high school senior Ivan Belousav, told NMTV, “you’re already at work.” When the job is done, students take the school activity bus home.

Belousav takes pride in his new after school gig, the station reported.

“It makes me feel kinda good because I’m helping out the community,” he said. “I’m making everything look clean, making everything look nice for my fellow students.”

The school’s janitorial staff had been spread too thin, Drewlo told the outlet.

“We couldn’t reach all of the areas around our school,” he said, but the students have changed that. “These kids have been a true godsend for us.”

The Anoka-Hennepin School District is in northern Minneapolis and serves around 38,000 students, according to a district website.

This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Desperate for janitors, Minnesota school district pays students $15 an hour to clean."