Sharon Sampson cleans windows outside the Fultondale Elementary School lunchroom on Wednesday. Sampson is the head custodian at the school, heading up a crew of four other custodians.

By Melanie Patterson

The North Jefferson News



Sharon Sampson runs a tight ship at Fultondale Elementary School.

As the head custodian, Sampson oversees every aspect of taking care of the facility.

“My personal goal is that 25 years from now, this school will look just like it does now,” said Sampson.

That’s a tall order, but Sampson knows it can be done.

Fultondale Elementary recently celebrated its one-year anniversary. It doesn’t even look that old, thanks in large part to Sampson and her crew of four full-time custodians.

“All of them work hard. They go above and beyond,” said Sampson.

By using blueprints and measuring the size of classrooms, Sampson divided the work among the custodial staff by giving everyone the same amount of square footage to clean.

Fultondale Elementary has 110,000 square feet, more than double the space in the old school, 52,000 square feet.

Sampson has slightly less square footage to clean than the other custodians.

However, she takes care of everything outside the building.

That includes cutting grass, trimming weeds and shrubs, picking up debris, cleaning windows, maintaining plants, putting down straw in flower beds and much more.

Sampson also handles all of the inventory, ordering and maintenance.

“I get called for everything,” said Sampson.

At the old Fultondale Elementary, Sampson said, it wasn’t unusual for a teacher to call her to get a lizard or snake out of a classroom.

“I get called on some of the oddest things,” she said.

At a recent visit to the school’s media center, the media center director asked Sampson if she would take care of a wobbly chair.

“It’s like this every day,” said Sampson later, with a smile.

Sampson has been the head custodian at Fultondale Elementary for two years.

When asked what she likes about her job, Sampson summed it up in one word: “Adventure.”

“It’s never the same routine. They pose me with different problems and I have to think about what to do. I love figuring things out,” she said. “It’s always an adventure.”

Sampson has a simple motto that has helped her many times in her work.

“Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves,” she said. “It has prevented big things down the road.”

Sampson credits both her father and her husband for her successful career.

When she was a child, her father owned a landscaping business and a repair shop. She helped with both.

“He taught me the value of doing a good job,” said Sampson. “I learned the proper way to do things.”

The two men also taught Sampson to read blueprints, which has proved invaluable in her job.

“I’m all the time going to the blueprints” for Fultondale Elementary, she said.

Sampson calls her husband, Terry Sampson, her “biggest supporter.”

Terry Sampson, a commercial pilot, has built his wife many gadgets that make her job easier.

He built a roof to shield the sun when she’s using the school’s tractor; a wooden box on the back of the tractor to hold supplies; a large wooden trash bin painted to look like a school bus; a rack that attaches to a pair of hand trucks and allows Sampson to easily move a stack of chairs; and many more useful things.

Sampson’s career began in 1978, when she was in the ninth grade at Rogers Vocational School at Gardendale High School.

There, she worked part-time as a custodian while she was in school, a job that she did for nine years.

She has been with the Jefferson County Board of Education ever since.

Sampson also did custodial work at Grantswood Community School for two years and at Fultondale High School for three years before working at Fultondale Elementary.

She also drove a bus for Mt. Olive Elementary for 19 years. She was there long enough to drive the children of some of her original students.

Sampson and her husband live in Kimberly. They have three sons.