CISD Custodial Closet Newsletter
Supporting educational success - August 2026
Director's Message / Mensaje del Director
As our halls fill with the energy of a new school year, I want to thank you for an outstanding summer deep clean. Campus administrators and district leaders have showered our department with praise for the incredible shine on our floors and the spotless state of our classrooms. Your hard work set the perfect foundation for our district!
As we transition into the school year, let’s keep this momentum going:
- Maintain Health & Safety: Execute daily electrostatic spraying to protect our students and staff from circulating viruses.
- Support Our Campuses: Be visible, keep restrooms fully stocked, and help teachers move items carefully to protect our floors.
- Keep Standards High: Keep closets locked and organized, label all chemical bottles, and maintain clean equipment.
A new year is a chance to grow. Let’s approach 2026–2027 with pride, an open mindset, and a commitment to working together. Thank you for everything you do to make Cleveland ISD shine!
Best regards,
William Prats-Palerm, M.Ed.
Director of Custodial Services
August / Agosto
3: Staff Development Day / Día de Desarrollo
4: Beginning of the 1st Nine Weeks / Comienzo de las primeras nueve semanas
12: International Youth Day / Día Internacional de la Juventud
- Finish of Summer Deep Cleaning / Finalizamos la limpieza a fondo del verano
- Update of our SOPs Manual and our Custodial Services Policies & Procedures Manual / Actualización de nuestro Manual de Procedimientos Operativos Estándar (SOP) y de nuestro Manual de Políticas y Procedimientos de Servicios de Custodia
- Daily disinfection protocol started to ensure the health of students and staff! / ¡Se ha puesto en marcha nuestro protocolo de desinfección diaria para garantizar la salud de los estudiantes y el personal!
School with the best custodians attendance / Escuela con la mejor asistencia de conserjes
- Northside Elementary
- Santa Fe Elementary
- 1: Ma García Ramírez
- 2: María Botello
- 3: María Rodríguez
- 10: Daylon Russell
- 16: Cynthia Hidalgo; Joaquina Beiza
- 25: Mariana García
By: Jon Hill & Brant Insero - May 11, 2026
K-12 schools face unprecedented operational pressures. Facility leaders must maintain safe, clean environments while navigating labor shortages and aging infrastructure. At the same time, school districts face growing expectations to support academic outcomes, student wellness, and community trust.
School district leaders are incorporating robotics into their cleaning routines to address these operational pressures. Robotic cleaning protocols that began as isolated pilot programs have transitioned into a practical, repeatable operational strategy. For school leaders, the conversation is no longer if robotics belongs in schools, but how to deploy them responsibly, affordably, and with a measurable return.
Robotics does not replace school staff, but rather it directly supports the learning environment. Cleaner, safer facilities reduce distractions, support attendance, and reinforce confidence among parents, teachers, and administrators.
Autonomous floor cleaning can help schools achieve these goals by improving consistency throughout the facilities. For example, many K-12 gyms are open to the public 18 hours a day, leaving very little time for staff to complete a deep cleaning. However, staff can program autonomous systems to clean in that limited-time frame, ensuring the gym meets the rest of the building’s cleanliness standards.
Equally valuable as consistency, robotics eliminate repetitive floor work, allowing staff to focus on higher-value, above-the-floor tasks like detailed cleaning of door knobs and desks and rapid response when a student gets sick. This daytime visibility reassures stakeholders that the school is clean. In K-12 schools, that visibility matters. Clean schools signal care, stability, and discipline, which are foundations for academic success.
Solving the labor crunch
The labor challenge in K-12 schools is structural, not cyclical. Absenteeism, turnover, and competition for front-line workers are long-term realities. The use of robotics stabilizes operations by automating routine floor care, which often accounts for 30% to 40% of custodial labor.
Rather than eliminating custodial roles, robots enhance the productivity of experienced staff and support new workflow models in which a single trained operator can oversee multiple tasks. This approach improves retention, reduces burnout, and creates pathways for custodians to move into training or management roles, strengthening the workforce rather than shrinking it.
The return on investment (ROI) for robotics is evaluated differently in schools than in commercial or healthcare environments. School districts increasingly focus on:
- Labor costs due to staff vacancies and overtime.
- Predictable operating expenses versus volatile wage growth.
- Consistency across multiple campuses.
- Reduced retirement, benefit, and payroll obligations over time.
The most successful districts treat robotics as long-term operational infrastructure, not short-term labor substitution.
Overcoming sticker shock
The upfront price is often the first concern school district leaders have about robotics, yet this hesitancy is easy to overcome with the right framing. K-12 districts have begun leasing robotic equipment, classifying the costs as operating expenses rather than capital purchases.
Leasing aligns with how schools already fund equipment, allowing districts to preserve capital while achieving immediate operational benefits. In this presentation, robotic floor equipment becomes a budget-neutral tool for managing risk, stabilizing staffing, and improving service delivery.
K-12 districts typically place robotics in one of two buckets:
- Operating expense (leased model): In this model, robotics are purchased through monthly or annual lease payments bundled with service, training, and support, simplifying approval and smoothing cash flow.
- Capital equipment (owned model): In this model, robotics depreciate over three to five years, like other floor equipment.
Both approaches work. The key is matching the funding model to district governance and financial strategy. Since districts budget almost entirely in operating expenses, anchor the conversation on fully burdened labor cost, not robot price.
A fully burdened labor rate is the total hourly cost to employ a worker, encompassing their base wage plus all indirect costs such as benefits, taxes, insurance, and overhead (e.g., equipment, facilities). It provides the true cost of labor, which is crucial for accurate bidding, project profitability, and determining whether hiring is more cost-effective than outsourcing.
The average U.S. K-12 custodian costs a school district US$55,000 to $70,000 per year, fully burdened. A cleaning robot costs $12,000 to $18,000 per year in operating expenses. By automating 50% to 75% of floor work, districts reduce overtime, staff vacancies, and the need for substitute labor, creating labor efficiency gains without eliminating positions. This is why the ROI works inside an operating budget—not despite it—politically, financially, and operationally.
Creating a natural fit for robotics and STEM
Another benefit of autonomous robots for school district leaders is that they demonstrate the value of technology to students. Most K-12 districts offer robotics or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. Cleaning robots provide a real-world extension of that STEM investment.
Autonomous cleaning robots:
- Demonstrate applied robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation.
- Support student engagement with real operational technology.
- Reinforce STEM, workforce development, and career pathways.
- Help students see robotics beyond competition and into daily impact.
In many districts, custodial robotic equipment becomes a visible, practical example of technology at work by connecting facilities, academics, and workforce readiness.
Aligning with the ISSA CIMS Standard
Autonomous robots provide a leg up for schools concerned with meeting industry standards. Robotic cleaning directly supports the intent of the ISSA Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) by improving consistency, documentation, training, and quality assurance.
Robotic equipment strengthens:
- Process control and standardization.
- Measurable outcomes and continuous improvement.
- Safety, compliance, and risk mitigation.
- Transparent reporting to boards and communities.
This direct support allows school districts to prove performance to the community, not just describe it.
Looking at the bigger picture
For school district leaders and employees, this moment in technology adaptation matters. The use of robotics in K-12 schools is not about machines; it’s about enabling people, supporting students, and building resilient school systems.
Beyond deploying technology, robots are helping schools focus on learning, protect their workforce, and steward scarce public resources responsibly.
From Cleaning the Hallways to Leading the Classroom: The Wanda Smith Story
Generated by Gemini AI; August 3, 2026
For years, Wanda Smith woke up early and worked well into the night in the Brenham Independent School District in Texas. To support her three children and care for her sick mother, she took on whatever work was needed—working double shifts as both a school bus monitor and a school custodian. She spent her days sweeping hallways, scrubbing floors, and making sure classrooms were spotless for the students and teachers.
Yet every time she cleaned a classroom, Wanda held onto a quiet dream she had carried since childhood: she wanted to be the one standing at the front of the chalkboard, teaching.
At age 37, with the encouragement of her family, Wanda decided it wasn't too late. She enrolled in evening college courses, balancing full-time custodial work, late-night studying, and family responsibilities. Despite facing immense personal heartbreak along the way—losing both her mother and two sisters—she persevered.
Nine years of grueling hard work paid off when Wanda graduated with her bachelor’s degree from Sam Houston State University as a certified teacher.
Her story came full circle when Brenham Elementary School—the very place where she had cleaned floors—hired her as a first-grade teacher. Today, she stands in her own classroom, inspiring young minds and showing her students that no obstacle is too big to overcome when you work hard for your dreams.
De limpiar los pasillos a dirigir el aula: La historia de Wanda Smith
Generado por Gemini AI, 3 de agosto de 2026
Durante años, Wanda Smith se levantaba temprano y trabajaba hasta altas horas de la noche en el Distrito Escolar Independiente de Brenham, Texas. Para mantener a sus tres hijos y cuidar de su madre enferma, aceptaba cualquier trabajo que fuera necesario, incluso trabajando turnos dobles como monitora de autobús escolar y conserje. Pasaba sus días barriendo pasillos, fregando pisos y asegurándose de que las aulas estuvieran impecables para estudiantes y profesores.
Sin embargo, cada vez que limpiaba un aula, Wanda albergaba un sueño que había tenido desde niña: quería ser ella quien estuviera frente a la pizarra, enseñando.
A los 37 años, con el apoyo de su familia, Wanda decidió que aún no era demasiado tarde. Se matriculó en cursos universitarios nocturnos, compaginando su trabajo de conserje a tiempo completo, sus largas noches de estudio y sus responsabilidades familiares. A pesar de sufrir un inmenso dolor personal —la pérdida de su madre y dos hermanas—, perseveró.
Nueve años de arduo trabajo dieron sus frutos cuando Wanda se graduó con una licenciatura de la Universidad Estatal Sam Houston como maestra certificada. Su historia dio un giro completo cuando la Escuela Primaria Brenham —el mismo lugar donde había limpiado pisos— la contrató como maestra de primer grado. Hoy, en su propia aula, inspira a las mentes jóvenes y les demuestra a sus alumnos que no hay obstáculo insuperable cuando se trabaja duro para alcanzar los sueños.
