Here at McCullough Jr. High, we have a problem. Trash is being left all over the school and nobody is helping out. Our custodian’s jobs are to make sure our school is clean for us students, not to pick up the trash that we leave behind. Collectively as students, we should be helping our custodians to keep our school clean, not fill it with trash.

Mostly, the trash that is left behind is in the lunchroom. “Because people have trash at lunch, they think that they can just leave it around,” says Jayden Mercado, an 8th-grade student at McC. And he’s right. Trash is left all over our school, but the lunchroom is usually where it’s at the most. And for the four lunches we have, the trash that is left can be overwhelming. So, what can we do to help our custodians and make their jobs easier? It’s simple, “Don’t leave trash around the school and pick up trash you can see.” (Jayden Mercado)

But what other things can we do to help out? Well, I have some ideas. One idea that I had that could be quite beneficial is a custodian help advisory. This would consist of volunteer students who can help our custodians during the 30 minutes of advisory. There are lots of students who don’t have any work to be doing in advisory, so why not let them help out our custodians? This means that more trash is being collected around the school, and the work that the custodians have to do can be decreased. But still, having more help for the custodians doesn’t mean we can continue to leave trash. It doesn’t matter how many people are picking up your trash because they shouldn’t need to.

The work that our custodians do for us is beyond amazing. But there is no need for us to leave our trash around the school. Having custodians help and learning how to properly throw away your trash are ways that we can all make a difference in our school. So, let’s stop leaving trash around our school and make McCullough Junior High a cleaner school.