The upkeep of classrooms on campus has surely fallen to the bottom of Bakersfield College’s to-do list. The floors in the classrooms accumulate dirt and trash throughout the semester, as if the rooms are not being cleaned on a daily basis.

The problem has grown and caught the attention of so many students that they’re now afraid to place their backpacks and belongings on the floor.

I have classes in four separate buildings on campus, and the floors are equally dirty in all four of those buildings. In one particular class, someone had tracked in dried-up leaves on a Wednesday. The next Monday, the leaves were still there, but by this time they had been trampled over several times and crushed to create an even larger mess.

Why is that? Do we not have enough custodians to take care of the problem?

According to Fine Operations Coordinator for BC Custodial and Grounds, Tim Carroll, there are currently 18 full-time custodians, and one part-time custodian. This is a drastic reduction in help due to layoffs that began in Spring 2003.

“Before we used to have 40 students that worked for us through Federal Work Study, now we are allowed four, but currently only have two,” said Carroll.

Currently each custodian is assigned to at least one building, many are responsible for two buildings.

I cannot point out the problem without wondering should the blame completely be placed on our custodians? Who is responsible for the floors not being cleaned properly?

Should the instructors on campus be responsible for the rooms that they use? Perhaps if they did a quick check before dismissing their students, a lot of the big litter items could get picked up more promptly.

Certainly students cannot deny responsibility. We are all adults here, and we should be ashamed to disregard our wrappers, empty drinks, wadded paper, and whatever other miscellaneous junk that gets thrown not only on classroom floors, but all over campus. However, it is obvious that many students just do not care.

Students will argue that it is not their responsibility to keep BC clean; there are people who get paid to do that. Well, obviously there are not enough of those people or else this would not be an issue, so quit being pigs and pick up your trash.

That is not to relieve the custodial team of its duties. Students pay tuition to attend this college, and they have the right to learn in a clean, sanitary environment. Granted, it is mostly students who dirty the place, messes that are unintentional such as the leaves and debris tracked in on people’s shoes isn’t being addressed, either. Classes need to be swept, mopped and vacuumed regularly.

“The small amount of help is not an excuse, we are still able to perform our duties, and believe it or not, we don’t get that many complaints,” said Carroll.

In an effort to address these issues, a building inspection program has been implemented. Custodians will now face surprise inspections that will rate their work. These inspection records will go into the custodians file.