The last thing most of us want to do is clean up messes other people make. For West Henderson High’s custodians, that’s their job.

It’s not uncommon knowledge that high school students are extremely messy. From the moment school begins to when the last bells ring, a lot of trash is produced and left behind by the student body. The reason we don’t constantly trip over soda cans, papers and crumpled chip bags is because of our hardworking custodians.

Cleaning up trash isn’t the only thing custodians have to do for all of us here at West. They also provide our desks, vacuum, wax the floors, fix malfunctioning technology, sanitize the lunchroom, repair damages and scrub away the graffiti left in the bathrooms and on walls. Looking at some of those messages left behind is enough to make someone feel sick. Imagine having to be the person to have to scrub that away, and deal with the other things students leave in the bathrooms.

West students need to do more to show our appreciation to our custodians and our school. School pride isn’t only chanting at football games and turning in your homework on time. It also means taking care of the place we all spend over seven hours in every day. The next time you decide to leave your empty orange juice bottle under your chair or the crumbs of your cheesy snack crackers on the bleachers, take a moment to think about if you had to be the one to deal with everyone’s grossness all day. Clean up after yourself, West. This is our school. We should keep it clean.

We all should also take a moment to thank our custodians. Custodian Appreciation Day is Oct. 2, but that shouldn’t be the only time they receive our thanks. Custodians manage to keep our school clean while remaining cheerful and friendly. They are some of the most important, and often underappreciated, members of our staff. It only takes a minute to tell them how much we appreciate them.

Spread kindness, not trash. Have pride in West. Have pride in our custodians.

By: Cat Whiting, Opinion Editor