Janitorial staff are essential to a school’s survival. They clean up our spills and vomit with no complaints. However, this doesn’t mean their job is easy.
Taking action to help with the growing janitorial demand, De Pere High School has decided to purchase an automated floor scrubber – the X6 ROVR. This scrubber will take the task of polishing the floors, sanitizing areas, and cleaning carpets away from human janitors.
With this recent news of a new robot cleaner coming to DPHS, head custodian Dean Verstoppen shares his perspective on the development.
“It’ll save us at least three hours a day minimum,” Verstoppen said.
The average time it takes to clean the whole school, according to Verstoppen, is roughly 16 hours, with much more if there are events such as pep rallies or basketball games.
This robot will massively improve their time, allowing them to focus on other things instead of scrubbing the floors. Three hours a day may not seem like much, but within the week, that adds up to 15-21 hours (depending on weekends).
Even though the robot will cost $89,000 initially, and could cost an additional few thousand depending on maintenance over the years, this investment still saves the school money. Depending on the role they play, janitors on average get paid between 36K-70K a year, according to Mr. Verstoppen. This yearly cost adds up quickly, so it makes sense that they chose the robot over hiring more staff.
“We would honestly like both,” Verstoppen said, asked if he’d rather have the robot or more staff. “It takes an hour and a half after big events, an hour and a half away from [cleaning] rooms… We were hoping to get [two new staff members] plus the cleaning robot.”
However, according to Verstoppen, financially it would be unlikely to get both right away.
Naming surveys were sent out to all students in October. Principal Allen says the purpose was to humanize the robot and prevent kids from vandalizing it, as well as bring a fun spin to the new addition.
On October 30th, an email was sent out to all students regarding the finale for the naming contest. These names include Optimus Grime, Dirt Vader, GLaDOS, Scrubby McScrubface, Glen, Ronny the Redbird, Cardi Clean, Notorious D.U.S.T., and Big Red. Once all the votes are in, we’ll have a name for this new addition to DPHS.
Update from Mr. Allen, principal (Nov. 10): Thank you for taking the time to respond to our Name the Scrubber survey. You have spoken. Receiving 23.9% of the 341 responses, please welcome to our Redbird Team, Big Red! Big Red will be joining our school in the coming weeks.
