EPISD head custodians to vacate on-campus housing

EPISD is about a month away from no longer being one of the few districts in the state to allow custodians and their families to live on-campus.

A handful of custodians will need to vacate their living quarters by Sept. 1.

The district used to let custodians live on-campus for free, to flip boilers overnight and turn on the lights before school. But now many of those services are automated.

The five custodians who didn’t voluntarily move out or leave the district before last September had to begin paying rent through this coming August. But after that, no custodians would be allowed to live on-campus — period.

“The apartments right across from here, they’re like $803 for three bedrooms,” said Fannin Elementary Head Custodian Maritza Cangas. “I have a boy and a girl, plus utilities. So it’s very tough. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Cangas has been charged roughly $330 a month for the past year. The single mother of two says her salary didn’t increase in keeping with the new rent charges.

“For me it’s sad, because I’ve been here 22 years,” Cangas said. “You give a lot. And then one day they tell you, ‘You’re out. … You’re moving on.'”

For 10 years prior, Cangas was known for being wide awake during overnight storms — pumping water at the school to prevent flooding.

“Last year they did the pond area, so now everything is fixed,” she said. “So now I feel like, ‘Oh, now we don’t need you. Now you can go.'”

Cangas said she’s now worried about overnight security breaches without a custodian living on campus. But EPISD spokeswoman Melissa Martinez said custodians were never expected to be security guards.

“We have our dispatches that connect directly to 9-1-1, and that dispatch is going to be alerted to anything that might be happening,” Martinez said. “Our officers are doing routine patrols, so they’re the ones doing that already, and have been doing it.”

The living quarters at what’s now called Lafarelle Alternative Middle School were closed down long before J.J. Frantz became head custodian about eight years ago. But he said he’s never had a desire to live on campus.

“Because of the privacy issues, and never leaving work,” Frantz said. “I like to get off of the property once in a while.”

Frantz told ABC-7 that the district recently gave him permission to begin using the vacant custodian apartment at Lafarelle for storage purposes.