Stripping in June

In one month, school will be out. Then what? Well, for our department, one of the biggest cleaning events this year. Stripping the floors in the commons and related areas.

Since the school was remodeled in 1999, the floors in this area have not been stripped. Stripping is more time-consuming and labor-intensive than just a normal scrub and re-coating of floors. Stripping involves removing all the wax right down to the original tile. Then wax is reapplied to the freshly cleaned floor bringing the shine back to a fine luster.

Over the years, no matter how often you clean a floor, small amounts of soiling work their way into the wax. Even when you scrub the floor and re-wax, there is some soiling and discoloration that cannot be helped. So, every few years you basically have to start over. When its finished it looks beautiful. Getting to that point is the time-consuming part.

So what areas exactly will we be stripping? The commons, choir room, front of the kitchen, Main St. hall, security office, ASB office, student store, room 405 and the alcove in front of 405 and the vestibule above the gym stairs as well as the ramp and hallway by the band practice rooms. It's a huge area and will take our whole team at least a week or so to accomplish. During that first week after school is out, those areas will be closed in sections as we strip and then finally closed completely while we wax everything. Once that's done, we will begin working on cleaning the rest of the building.

Every year is a busy one in the summer. This year is no exception. Our goal, as always, is to have all major cleaning done by August 15. The rest of August is then spent working on areas that are not so public and taking care of other items that we don't get to during the school year.

So, if you want to help, drop on by! We'd love to show you what we do and get some extra hands in the mix.