click to enlarge - Alison Novak ©️ Seven Days
- Wylie Tharp dust-mopping
In 2021, Champlain Valley Union High School student Wylie Tharp got a part-time job at Majestic 10 Cinemas in Williston. Because of understaffing, it involved a variety of jobs. His favorite was the solitary, methodical task of cleaning the theaters after moviegoers departed. Tharp wondered if he could find a job that would allow him to do janitorial work exclusively.
Last fall, at his mom's urging, Tharp emailed CVU maintenance director Tom Mongeon asking whether the school could use another part-time custodian. Mongeon immediately said yes.
Each week since October, Tharp, 17, has been working two four-hour afterschool shifts vacuuming and dust-mopping the library and other classrooms, emptying trash cans, and buffing the floors with a Scotch-Brite polisher.
The last task is Tharp's favorite because of how well the machine works.
"You can see your face in [the floor]," he said.
At $16 an hour, Tharp earns roughly $3 per hour more than he did at the movie theater.
Other teens have joined him. This year, between four and six CVU students have worked as part-time custodians, Mongeon said. They supplement the five-member custodial night crew, who work 3 to 11:30 p.m. shifts. Typically, the school would employ eight full-time custodians, but it's been nearly impossible to hire staff over the past few years, so the part-time student workers help fill in the gaps.
CVU principal Adam Bunting said he sees great value in students taking on the work.
"When you trust people and give them responsibility ... you speak to the adult side of the adolescent, and that's who you get back," Bunting said, adding that he sees Tharp as a role model for other students.
Tharp said the work has given him a fresh perspective.
"I think more about the way I treat the school," he said. "When you have to actually empty the trash, you think about what you're putting in there more."
Asked if he's just as tidy outside of school, Tharp smiled.
"I don't want to take work home," he said.