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It takes 1,335 building service employees to keep Montgomery County's nearly 200 schools fit and trim. The work is tedious, dirty, smelly, and can be the first line of defense in cases of lice outbreaks and MRSA.

And it's a year-round operation. So as work wrapped up to ready schools for the first day of classes on Tuesday — and the nearly 138,000 germ-ridden, mess-making students — we take a brief look into the lives of school custodians.

Last year alone, custodial services went through 17,500 gallons of floor wax, cleaned 139,000 desks, refinished 140 gym floors, tended 3,000 acres of grass and maintained the 6,500 classrooms.

Job security

The halls of Watkins Mill High School can be quiet, if not downright lonely, on the nights when 52-year-old Michael Ray wraps up the night shift, checking the locks, setting alarms, spotting any leftover mess that his 10-man crew might have missed.

He locks up, his huge keychain jingling as he strides the tile floor for the umpteenth time. Then the morning crew is in by 6:30 the next morning, the night crew by 2:30. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's a routine nearly 20 years going. Since the 1,800-student school opened, Ray has seen teachers and principals come and go; he's seen generations of students grow up and graduate, including his own three;  and he's seen the building expand — with the intimate knowledge of its grub and grime that only a janitor can have.

It has attached him to more than just the building.

"I enjoy the job. Being around the kids helps keep you young, keep you energized and stuff. It's a good job. We got good benefits; we have good security, so I plan on staying here for a while," he said laughing in his closet-sized office in the building's basement. "… I like it here. I like the people here. I like the kids that come through here; it's a very diverse school, you have a lot of different cultures here. It's just a nice place to work. And even with the new people coming in, leaving, whatever, I've always found that it's been a good school."

For the custodial staff, there is no summer vacation. He and his crew set to the summer cleaning regimen on the first Monday after school lets out. At the top of priorities: stripping and re-waxing the tile floor. Then they set to sanitizing the school's 28 bathrooms, scrubbing out the stairwells — even blotting up fingerprints on glass and scraping off those pesky little pieces of tape stuck to the walls from students hanging signs and posters.

During the school year, add the occasional mess of a student throwing up, even once when "somebody did something on the bathroom floor." But that's to be expected, he says — not that he'd ever complain.

"Nothing really burns now because I done seen it all. We have to do it," he says. "And when I see the kids messin' up, I just tell myself, ‘That's job security' — as long as they make a mess, I got a job."

Beyond the building

Chris Lazor, 22, gives equal attention to making the building and students shine at Spark Matsunaga Elementary School in Germantown.

But keeping the facility immaculate and inviting is only one part of the job. Lazor, called "Mr. Chris" by the kids, is a mentor to students. He eats lunch with them, offers advice and always lends an ear. He talks with their teachers about their goals.

Lazor has been mentoring the same boy, now a second-grader, since he was in kindergarten as part of a mentoring program started by Vice Principal Andy Doerrman. He is one of four building services workers involved in the program.

"We work with these students to get them through the school year," Lazor said.

Lazor helps coach the school's Young Run Club with physical education teacher Cindy Lins. An avid runner himself, he leads laps around the school to warm up and cool down to help prepare students for the annual Darcars Young Run, a non-competitive event held in Rockville.

"I love to run; that's my favorite activity," said Lazor, who finished 510th of the 2,695 runners who completed the Marine Corps 10K in October. "If I had a bad day here, I just go out and run."

Lazor's mother, director of food and nutrition services for Montgomery County Public Schools, told him about a part-time job opening at Matsunaga following his graduation from Seneca Valley High School in 2004. He became a full-time employee two years later.

Lazor, a general studies student at Montgomery College, was named the MCPS 2007-08 Supporting Services Employee of the Year, an honor he was nominated for by staff at Matsunaga.

"I actually want to become a building service manager," he said. "You can take care of a big space, and I love to clean and talk to people."

All that jazz

When he isn't performing jazz routines on stage for Walter Johnson High School students, John Brooks makes sure the school looks clean and runs smoothly.

Brooks has been the building services day manager at Walter Johnson since 1988 and heads up a staff of 18 fellow maintenance workers. He has been getting to school every morning at 6 a.m. to prepare for the start of the new school year.

So far, the biggest challenge for Brooks and his crew is working around the school's ongoing modernization program. The construction at Walter Johnson means that Brooks isn't able to clean and paint every area he'd like to. But he's still determined to make sure things work properly and appear fresh for students and staff. He said he may have to work weekends to catch up.

Brooks said his favorite part about being at Walter Johnson is the atmosphere at the school. "Working around the teachers and the students and the administrative staff has been really good," he said.

Occasionally Brooks dresses up and gets to do singing and musical routines for the school. One time he even pulled double duty, singing his own jazz numbers and then changing into a different set of clothes to perform with students and staff for an appreciative audience.

"It's nice to hear them clap," he said, laughing.

Six days to spruce

By the time this school year officially began, Bill Hicks, building services manager at Wheaton High School, was practically in mid-year form.

For the first time in his 19 years at Wheaton, there was daytime summer school, with more than 1,300 students occupying nearly every classroom until the program ended Aug. 8.

That gave Hicks, who has worked for MCPS for 46 years, just six days to spruce up the school before teachers arrived Aug. 19.

So he and his staff of 16 worked overtime Aug. 9 and 10 to clean the classrooms, wax the floors and fix one group of students' mess so another could tear it all down in a couple weeks.

"At first, it's nice to see the kids come in that first day," said Hicks, a burly, imposing figure, despite his soft Virginia drawl. "But those freshmen come in rough. The other kids, they have been here before, but the freshmen are out to prove something."

Hicks, who often walks to the campus from his nearby home, arrives each day at 4:50 a.m. to seize control of the building he knows so well. He said he has never taken a vacation longer than two days because he is fearful of the work that would await his return.

Despite the early start to the back-to-school season, he knows the bulk of the work will come after the students arrive, mainly because a teenager's behavior is one of the few things Hicks can't predict after all these years.

"You used to be able to tell kids to stop messing around," Hicks said. "Now, they'll turn around and tell you what to do."