Carol Albright has dedicated nearly half a century to keeping the halls of McMurray Middle School and Chautauqua Elementary clean and welcoming.

This year, however, will be the last for the beloved island custodian of 45 years.

Albright, a lifelong resident of Vashon Island, began her career working night shifts at McMurray, sharing the eight-hour workload with a colleague. When a day shift position opened up, she eagerly made the switch.

“People think I’m nuts, but I just love it,” Albright said of working with the students. “This age is such a ‘coming of age’ age.”

For the past 20 years, Albright has maintained her daytime eight-hour schedule. Despite undergoing hip replacement surgery just weeks ago, she’s already back on her feet and was ready for her final first day of school on Tuesday, Sept. 3.

“I’m a little nervous,” Albright said with a laugh. “Every year is a new year.”

Middle school is often a challenging three-year period in young people’s lives, Albright said. With her desk positioned near the student support services, Albright has formed strong bonds with many students who come through those doors.

“Middle school is rough, but it’s nice to have a special friend like that,” she said. “Somebody that feels like they can come talk to me.”

Keeping kids respectful at this age means having a sense of humor, she said.

“You tease them a little bit, and give them the old stink eye,” Albright said with a smile.

One of her favorite parts of the job is watching students transform — arriving as shy and nervous sixth graders and leaving as eighth graders with confidence.

“A lot of kids I will still recognize when they come do the senior walk four years later,” Albright said. “And then for some of them, their voices are deep and they have facial hair, and it’s like ‘What happened to you? Oh, you grew up.’”

Due to school district budget cuts, this year McMurray Middle School will have only one nighttime custodian instead of the usual two. Albright expressed concern that the staff cut might mean an increase in her daytime cleaning duties.

“Night is when all the major classroom cleaning happens,” Albright said. “One person at night cannot do it all.”

McMurray Principal Greg Allison said additional custodial support will be brought in during the day.

Albright is excited for, and fully supports the new “Away for the Day” middle school phone policy around cell phones. She said student phone use during school has fueled destructive TikTok trends, like forcibly removing soap dispensers from bathroom walls.

“They would videotape or take pictures of them destroying things,” Albright said. “I was like, ‘let’s put a kibosh on that.’”

And a phone-free lunchroom, she believes, will lead to a much cleaner school environment.

Working in the same school district for 45 years, she has witnessed many of her former students start families and bring their own children to school. She often delights in asking students if their parents were past students, often confirming the resemblance with a knowing smile.

“It’s a little weird,” Albright said with a laugh.

Albright has also witnessed the countless ways teachers go above and beyond, often off the clock — from finding new backpacks for students in need to spending their own money on classroom snacks.

When it comes to cleanliness, the students, she said, have not really changed over the years. They’ve always been messy. But the products used in the school have become more environmentally friendly.

“I can remember resurfacing the gym floor, and the stuff we were using … would eat the soles of your shoes off,” Albright said. “I’m not exactly sure how EPA (friendly) that was.”

Principal Allison hoped Albright could stay awhile longer.

“Carol is just a fixture, she’s warm with students, she enjoys being around them, she cares for staff members and has [given] amazing service to our school,” Allison said. “She is one of those people who is not formally a teacher, but she is super important as an educator in our school … that’s what we want of all the adults that come into contact with kids, to be great role models.”

But Albright said she has plans to travel and experience new things after retirement.

Cornelius Lopez, a longtime math teacher at the middle school for 48 years, often joked about who would retire first. After he retired last year, Albright says it’s now her turn.

Lopez is “retired” in name only, as he continues to volunteer in classrooms at McMurray every day.

The impact of Albright’s help at the school was boundless, he said, and she wore many hats.

“The kids all like her because she does not come up and tell them off,” Lopez said. “She comes up as a support person and helps them … and [they] chuckle on it together.”

When Lopez’s wife, Tish, was suffering from dementia, managing meals was difficult because he was at school all day. Albright made it a point to check in with Lopez and prepare some school lunch items which he could take home to his wife, he said.

“I can’t imagine anyone could do any better,” he said. “She is doing a good job at something that is hard, (and) doing it softly.”