Engineers, often mistakenly referred to as “janitors,” work day and night to help ensure that South runs smoothly, but often get overlooked.

During the school year, the engineers’ day shift starts around 5:30 AM and goes until 2:00 PM. The typical evening shift goes from 2 PM to 10 PM. In addition, the engineers are required to stay and clean up after school and public events.

“[We’re in charge of] everything that needs to be done [inside] and outside the building, and [we] call in the trades when something is beyond our realm of expertise,” said South’s head engineer Laura Furey.

Students often  make the engineers’ jobs more difficult by simply adding to their workload. Social studies teacher Richard Nohel, noted, “[Students] assume that their job is just cleaning, and that they’ve got nothing better to do than pick up their trash.”

Furey reiterated that students can help the engineers out by “picking up your trash. It’s human nature to spill, but if you do, let someone know so that it can get cleaned up.”

The engineer’s job description includes much more than cleaning. Furey explained that a big focus of their job includes boiler maintenance and general maintenance, which helps to keep the school safe. The job involves caring for the boiler, a skill that requires a license. Improper boiler maintenance could lead to an explosion, which could potentially take out an entire city block.

Engineer Fred Bennett emphasized that while proper boiler maintenance is important for any building with a boiler, it is especially important at South, which has two boilers.

Recently, the engineers have been worried about rumors that the Minneapolis Public School district has decided to stop hiring engineers and instead plans to only hire custodians. A custodian’s job is solely cleaning and does not require the level of certification held by engineers.

“The difference between us and custodians is, custodians don’t have to have the licensing for running the boilers and usually they are just cleaners,” explained Furey. “[Engineers] do a lot more than just clean.”

Carla Bates, a member of the Board of Education, explained via email that while final decisions have not been made, “some reconstructing is going on in terms of engineers and janitors.” Bates confirmed that no one without the proper licensing would work on the boiler.

Executive Director of Management and Capital Construction, Mark Bollinger, explained in an email that recently it was discovered that the state does not require all engineering staff to hold a Boiler Operator Certification. Since it costs less to hire custodians than engineers, Minneapolis Public Schools has decided to only hire “an appropriate number for proper coverage [of boilers].”

“In an effort of the District to be sensitive to all taxpayers in Minneapolis, be efficient with public funds, and provide the best service to the schools, the Custodial position was developed and negotiated with the Union into the contract,” elaborated Bollinger in an email. He continued, “MPS was able to provide the needed cleaning services without the cost of unnecessarily paying extra for Boiler Operator Certifications where they weren’t needed.”

South engineer Christine Wilkins, who has worked as an engineer for 10 years, said, “this used to be a job where people were on a waiting list to get to work here … now it’s just a union, and the teachers union, and the Board of Education, and Minneapolis Public Schools all making these decisions and it’s culminated with what we have now.”