Heavy lifting? No problem for these summer workers

When District 30’s schools close for summer break, the buildings are anything but empty. The schools are cleaned from top to bottom, a job that couldn’t be accomplished without a dedicated staff of summer workers.

After 10 months of heavy use, there’s a lot of work to be done in just two months of summer vacation, so the classrooms and hallways can be sparkling when teachers and students return in September. John Rudy, the head custodian at Clear Stream Avenue School, said the summer workers help the district accomplish all of the work on time.

College students Luke Gagstetter and Brian Reusch have been working with Rudy for several years now. The pair say they look forward to returning every summer. “It’s pretty good hours,” said Reusch, an exercise science major at SUNY Cortland. “You have off nights during the summer, which is good, and weekends off.”

Every weekday, they work from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. They have to move the furniture out of each classroom so the custodial staff can strip and wax floors, then put all of the desks, chairs, bookcases and other items back. Then, all of the furniture gets a thorough cleaning. One of the most tedious tasks for the summer staff is scraping all the scotch tape off the student desks.

“There’s a lot of stuff in the classrooms,” Reusch said. “You have to make sure everything is clean.”

“You’d be surprised how dirty some of that stuff gets,” added Gagstetter, who said that chairs take the most time to clean. However, he said there is so much work to do that each day usually goes by pretty fast.

Reusch, 21, is in his fifth year as a summer worker in District 30, said he heard about the job from a friend. Gagstetter, 20, is in his fourth year and followed the lead of his other brothers.

Both are Central High School graduates but actually went to elementary school at Wheeler Avenue School in District 13. Gagstetter attends SUNY Brockport and is studying to become a phys. ed. teacher. As an aspiring educator, he said he likes being in a school atmosphere over the summer. He has even gotten some advice from the principal and the teachers who stop in from time to time.

Reusch, who hopes to become a physical therapist, said the job helps him build strength and train for a career where he expects to be on his feet all day.

Another benefit to the job is that they get to earn decent money, as they are paid to work 40 hours per week. Before getting the job in District 30, Gagstetter worked one year with Valley Stream’s summer camp program at Barrett Park and Reusch a summer at the village pool. Those jobs were about 20 hours each week and paid less, they said.

All three schools in District 30 have summer workers. Billy Seiter, 21, is working at the Forest Road School. The 21-year-old attends the University of Scranton and is an exercise science major.

This is his fourth summer working for the district and said he has been at all three schools during that time. He said he likes that the job is always waiting for him when he gets home from school. “Going away to college and coming back, it’s not easy to keep a job,” he said. “No places are willing to hire for two months.”

Seiter attended Clear Stream Avenue School growing up, and said it was an interesting experience seeing it from a different perspective as a summer worker — everything seemed much smaller as an adult. Working there was tougher than Forest Road School, he explained, because Clear Stream is multiple floors and that often meant moving furniture up and down stairs.

He said he enjoys the people he works with at Forest Road. Gagstetter added that the key to doing a job well is teamwork.

Rudy said summer is the busiest time of the year for the custodial and maintenance staff. Having workers who return year after year, like Reusch, Gagstetter and Seiter, make the jobs go faster because they already know what to do when they arrive in late June. “Our summer help is the foundation of what we do,” he said, “because they make the job go.”