Laney gets some much needed cleaning

It was back to class today for students in New Hanover County.

After low scores on a health inspection and some major spring-cleaning. Students at Laney High School returned to a squeaky clean building on Monday.

After four internal inspections by the school’s maintenance department and one by the health department, Laney got a score of 70.5, citing sanitation problems in the bathroom and even finding roaches.

Because of that, there was a team of custodians doing some much-needed spring-cleaning over spring break.

“It certainly can shine and it is shining right now, and we are going to try and keep it shining. We are proud of where we are and we are trying to keep it that way,” said principal Al O’Briant.

That will be a challenge. With the district facing major budget cuts and a hiring freeze, keeping the school clean will be a test. Laney’s custodian staff has dropped from 12 to 9, and they are responsible for cleaning ten buildings with 90 classrooms.

“Well these are certainly interesting times with budget cuts and positions being frozen and those sorts of things. You do the very best you can with the numbers that we have.”

Administrators say when you add up all the duties the custodians are responsible for, in order to clean the entire campus, they can only spend about ten minutes per classroom.