‘Someone’s Gotta Do It’: A Day in the Life of an LAUSD Custodian

Tiffany Lauren | November 26, 2019

East Los Angeles, CA – Nov. 12: Edna Logan, custodial staff at Esteban E. Torres High School. (Brian Feinzimer)

Inglewood, CA – Nov. 17: Edna Logan sings during Sunday mass at The Life Center Church of God. (Brian Feinzimer)

It’s 3:30 PM on a Tuesday afternoon at

Esteban Torres High School in East Los

Angeles. Not a soul is in sight, with

classes having let out for the day half an

hour earlier. Edna Logan, 60, enters the

first floor boys’ restroom of the Social

Justice Leadership Academy – one of

five academies within Torres High.

“Hello, anybody in here? Yoohoo?” she

calls out into the restroom doorway.

Confirming she is alone, Edna enters the

restroom and begins to clean the

waterless urinals in two rounds, using

jugs filled with water and apple cider

vinegar to clear away any lingering

stench. She inspects the bathroom

stalls for tagging, and explains that all

stalls have a special painted coating

that makes it easier to wipe away any

notes left behind from “future artists.”

Edna proceeds to clean off tagging

found on the restroom stalls. Some

tagging on an adjacent wall does not

come off so easily and will require

further attention later on from her

colleague, Al.

East Los Angeles, CA – Nov. 12: Edna Logan, custodial staff at Esteban E. Torres High School. (Brian Feinzimer)

Edna scrubs the toilet bowls clean,

wipes down the sinks, sweeps, and

gives a final mop of the floor. She then

moves onto the adjacent girls’ restroom,

where the stench is not as stale, but the

floors are completely littered with used

toilet paper and soiled tampons. Edna

repeats the process, cleaning off any

tagging from the walls, scrubbing the

toilet bowls clean, wiping down the

sinks, and giving the floors a mop down.

She places the mop back onto her

cleaning cart, and proceeds to push it

down the hall and through the exit

doors of the Academy, these two

bathrooms only the tip of the iceberg to

her daily eight-hour shift as a custodian

of Torres High, and all in a day’s work for

$16.22-$18.77 per hour.

Of the 600,000 students enrolled within

the Los Angeles Unified School District,

over 19,500 experienced homelessness

during the last school year. Additionally,

over 8,500 lived in foster care. For any

student, school can be the one source of

stability in their daily life. This is why the

work of people like Edna Logan is so

vital to school needs. Edna is part of the

integral yet often overlooked class of

workers within public schools known as

Buildings and Grounds workers.

A Day in the Life

Every weekday during the 2:30 PM to

11:00 PM timeframe, Edna is responsible

for cleaning approximately 18

classrooms, 12 bathrooms, a staff

lounge, and four rehearsal studios for

the dance, theatre, and music programs.

Torres High opened in 2010 and is also

home to YOLA, the Youth Orchestra

program run by the L.A. Philharmonic.

Edna’s responsibilities cover only one of

the five academies at Torres High,

whose total current enrollment is 1,915

students, which breaks down to 300-

400 per academy.

There are four total custodians currently

employed at Torres High, one daytime

and three overnight. All of them have

split responsibilities to keep the entire

school clean. A hefty burden as-is, and a

continued challenge thanks to

recession-era budget cuts that occurred

throughout the entirety of LAUSD

during the years of 2007-2014, and

specifically at Torres High back in 2011.

Cuts that have yet to be restored.

Weekend work is also not a factor to

custodian life because weekends mean

overtime, and overtime assignments are

not generally given to the B&G workers

of Torres High, a reality no doubt due to

budget constraints. And if a colleague

calls out sick? Theoretically, a

substitute custodian will be sent, but

more likely that day’s work will either be

picked up by the other custodians or

more realistically, will not get done at all.

On this particular afternoon, Edna was

hustling to complete two days’ worth of

work into one shift because the day

prior had been a federal holiday.

“What’s top priority is restrooms

because of the health issue. So I take

time to make sure the restrooms are

right because people can get ill, sick,

you know? Can’t let that happen.”

There was one rare instance “a long

time ago” where Edna was the only

custodian to show up for her shift at

Torres because all of her colleagues

called out sick. She did as many

restrooms as she could, secured the

gates, and left. Having to clean the

entire school by herself that night, she

was unable to tend to any classrooms.

Outside of restrooms, specific

classroom responsibilities are to pick up

the trash and sweep and mop the floors.

The once-per-week sweeping and

mopping schedule for each classroom is

quite apparent. In certain rooms, Edna

shakes her head while looking at the

dirty floors, expressing the sentiment

that she wishes there were more time

and resources available to give these

classrooms a thorough cleaning.

In addition to classrooms, Edna is

responsible for daily sweeping and

mopping of the hallways of the multi-

level Academy, as well as tending to the

cleanliness of its administrative offices

and “Teacher Collaboration Room,” the

first-floor lounge for teachers of the

Humanitas Academy which also

doubles as the counselors’ office.

Being a female working alone at night

on a big high school campus, the

obvious question of safety arises. When

asked if she’s ever felt unsafe by herself

during a shift, Edna simply responds,

“No. I have faith.”

Cleanliness Is Next to Selflessness

During Edna’s shift, there were a lot of

unexpected discoveries. From the

restrooms that are intentionally kept

locked and closed off from student use

because the school does not have the

resources and manpower to clean them

on a regular basis, sometimes leaving

the boys without a restroom on one

floor or the girls without a restroom on

the other, or sometimes, no restroom at

all, or others where only one stall is in

service.

To the all-gender staff restroom found

in the Humanitas Academy, the only all-

gender restroom within the entire high

school or the handful of teachers

working well past the five o’clock hour.

But most outstanding was Edna’s hustle.

Her good energy and innately warm

disposition remained apparent

throughout the entirety of the eight-

hour shift and despite the task. She

could be dusting off the exterior

doormat of the Academy’s second floor,

mopping up a classroom, or scraping off

gum from the hallway floor or a spit wad

stuck to a wall. No matter the task, it is

clear that she not only takes pride in her

work yet also completes each duty with

intention and love.

“I know how necessary and important it

is. Because children need to have a

clean, decent environment to be able to

learn. I grew up like that. I didn’t grow up

in a filthy classroom, filthy school, and

so, I know how important it is for them to

be able to be motivated and be able to

concentrate. So although I’m not the

teacher who is writing on the

blackboard and handing out the

lessons, I’m making it possible for them

to be comfortable, for them to be

functional to able to do that. So I find

pleasure in knowing that my

contribution is an important piece of the

pie, which is the success of the child’s 

education.”

It’s a refreshingly spirited outlook from

someone who has been working for

LAUSD in various capacities since 1989,

and in her current role at Torres since

2010. Edna is an active union member of

the SEIU Local 99, the Education

Workers Union, and is even part of its

bargaining team and is a steward for her

school site, keeping colleagues aware of

all union related events and information.

Life After-school

Outside of her professional life, Edna

takes joy in being the Director of the

Adult Choir for The Life Center Church

of God in Inglewood, her place of

worship since infancy and since its

original incarnation in East L.A. Music

has always been a natural part of Edna’s

life, “I started singing when I started

talking is how the story goes.” On the

job, she hums various melodies.

Nothing in particular, “Sometimes I

make up melodies, it’s just a habit.” Later,

when asked if she would have ever

pursued a career in music, Edna

candidly states, “I’m a good backup

singer, I’m not the one that stands out….

If I wasn’t a custodian, I still would’ve

worked in children’s, I’m sure working

with kids in some aspect. I’m sure. ‘Cuz

that just came, it just, you know it’s just

second nature to me. Probably.”

Refueled and ready to get back at it 30

minutes later, Edna heads back across

campus and cleans nonstop for the next

hour and a half. Her other wildly

important expectation every night is to

make sure every restroom, classroom,

office, and building is also secured and

locked for the night.

There was a time several years ago

where in addition to their daily janitorial

and custodial duties, the custodians of

Torres High were also tasked with

mentoring students as part of a school

community service program. The goal of

the program was to help at-risk

students renew their focus and get their

studies back on track. A goal which the

school felt could be achieved by having

these students complete “community

service,” assisting custodial staff. One

young female student mentored by

Edna would later come back to thank

her for her encouragement and

guidance, sharing the news that not

only did the experience help the student

find enough inspiration and focus to

improve her grades but also that she

had successfully gotten into college.

In a conversation we would have two

weeks later, she also was sure to

emphasize a “correction” she wanted to

make to her original interview: That

while she loves Stevie Wonder, her

favorite singer is actually her niece,

Tiffany Binion Mangum.

East Los Angeles, CA – Nov. 12: Edna Logan, custodial staff at Esteban E. Torres High School. (Brian Feinzimer)

It is just shy of 11:00 PM when Edna

returns to the B&G staff lounge, located

in a private first-floor space towards the

rear of G Building. Her daily duties

within the building now checked off and

her work duties as a whole officially

done for the day, Edna brings her shift

to a comical close by mimicking the

famous words of Porky the Pig, “‘I

believe, I believe, I believe that’s all

folks.’ That’s pretty much it. That’s what I

do.”

One day down. Three more to go.