Early Risers: Keeping the school clean before sunrise

Kids have to wake up early to get to school, but long before they walk into the classroom, some staff is already there making sure the school looks good and everything is in order.

The sun is nowhere in sight when Donald Bryant arrives at Mary C. Williams Elementary School. Bryant is the school’s senior custodian. “I was always an early riser. I love to get up early in the mornings,” he said.

But he wasn’t always bustling around classrooms with broom in hand. He began working here nearly seven years ago, after retiring from DuPont. “Just sitting around wasn’t my thing, and I was still a young man, so I decided to come here and I enjoy working with the kids so I just found my spot,” added Bryant.

As soon as he gets to work, he goes to every classroom, making sure everything is in working order. Then, it’s time to sweep, wipe the tables in the cafeteria, and then look around to see if anything needs to be vacuumed.

Getting to work at 6:00 a.m. means you have a couple of hours of quiet time to get your work done, but then once students begin arriving the pace picks up a little bit. “They’ll eat breakfast, and then I’ll clean up after they eat breakfast. They then go to class and I mop the area and get everything ready for lunch which is at 10:30 a.m.,” described Bryant.

But he is not alone the entire time. He has three employees to help, once they get to work around 8:30. “I couldn’t handle it all by myself. I would try, but I couldn’t do it,” he said.

Though Bryant makes sure the school stays clean, don’t call him just a custodian. He said there’s much more to his job than that. “It’s not only the cleaning or custodial work I do. I look after the kids. Maybe some of them have a problem or something and I need to help them find a teacher or sometimes find a classroom.”