Toilet paper clogs the toilets. Spoons, forks and napkins litter the cafeteria tables. Trash overfills the trash cans. North Atlanta, a building of grandeur and awe for new freshmen, visitors, and students alike, would become the equivalent of a pigsty on a farm without the driving force behind it, the ones that we hardly see and the ones we constantly forget: the custodians.

Let’s be honest, maybe the whole notion of teenagers cleaning up after themselves is wishful thinking. Custodians are the people we see in our day-to-day school lives that take out the garbage and recycling, clean the hallways, clean the cafeteria, clean the classrooms, clean the bathrooms, clean the parking deck, and countless other things that really make a difference in our learning environment.

Custodians at North Atlanta are not actually Atlanta Public Schools employees. They are hired by the district and specifically work for American Facilities Services. Some are here during the day and a different crew comes in late in the evening to clean classrooms and hallways. Cleaning an 11-story 500,000 square foot building is no small task. Each custodian has a different set of responsibilities and cleaning sectors. “I normally start in the gym, replace the toilet paper in bathrooms and then sweep the cafeteria,” said Derek Jeffery, a school custodian. “The gym is my favorite part and the cafeteria is my least favorite part.”

So the next time you see one of these private heroes, give them a smile and a friendly wave because they’re the ones that stand between a clean school and a pigsty.