Midnight shift comes to an end

Phil Tritt knows the names of the students at Valley View Elementary School, but not the faces.

He never hears the laughter and excited voices of the 342 youngsters, even though he spends nearly 40 hours a week at the school.

Tritt instead knows the silence and the occasional creeks and pops of the school building, where for 15 years he’s worked alone as the nighttime custodian. Those nights will come to an end on Jan. 29, when Tritt retires from Boundary County School District after working there for 38 years as a custodian.

Someone to replace Tritt, who will turn 62 on Jan. 14, has not yet to be named.

He says he’ll miss the students, even though he never sees them. What Tritt does see is their projects on their desks, and their artwork on classroom walls and hallways.

“I used to know them quite well,” Tritt said looking back on a career that began as the daytime custodian at the former Northside Elementary School.

Tritt spent his first eight years at Northside, where he worked a split shift, starting early in the morning and leaving at night.

“I was supposed to work a split shift, but they would call me in (when needed),” he said.

From Northside he went to Valley View, where he’s remained for 30 years. Tritt was placed on the night shift after a school official determined it would be best to have someone there to deter vandalism.

Tritt works 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday.

“It’s quite nice,” he said. “No one bothers you and you get a lot more done that way.”

“It was very hard at first,” Tritt continued. “I had to keep throwing cold water on my face.”

It takes him five hours to vacuum the classrooms. The hallways and bathrooms follow. In the winter, Tritt clears the snow from the sidewalks.

While he works only in Valley View’s main building, another custodian cleans the separate kindergarten building and annex. That person works until 1 p.m. Tritt might see that custodian 15 minutes a day.