In the summertime, these huge halls go dark, completely empty. No classes going on, and no people filling the halls with conversation. The school just waits for the next school year to come around, or does it? What is actually going on at Bingham when all of the students go home and try to forget about this building for the summer?

Well, the truth is, there are tons of students who don’t forget about this building for the summer. Kids who are a part of marching band, football, cheer, and several other programs will be here practicing at the school nearly every day during the summer. But still, there are a ton of things going on at the school during the summer that most students don’t know about at all.

We all know that this school is old, 43 years old, so it requires a ton of maintenance. While the students are relaxing in the sun, the custodians work all summer to fix things from last school year and prepare the school for us in the coming year. They will be here cleaning out lockers, changing combos, deep cleaning all of the classrooms, and rewaxing the floors. The custodians will also be doing general maintenance on this old building.

This summer, Jordan District has planned quite a few projects to try to make the school better. They will completely redo the air conditioning and the boiler system in the school, so finally we won’t have to wear our winter jackets inside all winter. They will also be completely redoing the surface of the parking lot and repainting all of the lines. The final project for this summer is resurfacing the gym. John Morgan, the head custodian, said that they are going to sand down the gym floor and reapply all of the gym lines and make it nice and shiny.

All summer, people like the custodians and the office members are trying to make the next year great for you. There are people in the office all year long. Jayne Aguilar, the head secretary at Bingham, said, “During the summer we get teachers ready with all of the supplies that they need, and we prepare the school financially for next year.” A ton of work goes into managing all of the financial parts of the school, so there is no time for the secretaries to take a long summer break like we do. The office is also ordering supplies for the teachers, like new textbooks and curriculum. The teachers are on break all summer, but many of them come to school periodically throughout the summer to prepare their classrooms for the next year and to work on curriculum.

When you come back to school I hope that you appreciate all of the work that goes into preparing the school for you every year. No matter what you might be up to during the summer, relaxing or not, there are going to be people at the school trying to make it better for your next year at Bingham.