COSTA MESA : Students, Parents Scrub School Clean

While using all his might to scrub the outside of Paularino Elementary School, fourth-grader Ziad Pepic explained why he came to school on a sunny Saturday morning.

“I wanted to clean the school because I love my school,” Ziad said, pausing to check the progress of schoolmates McCall Marshall and Steven Noland, who were helping wash the wall. “It’s a little bit dirty.”

Actually, Ziad’s school was a lot dirty.

“We had some incidents of graffiti last year and (a portable trailer containing two classrooms) was burned this summer,” said Brooke Booth, principal of the Costa Mesa elementary school. “As a result of that, the parents were concerned and decided the whole idea would be to come out here and scrub until the school is sparkling clean. . . . This is what we want for our kids.”

A group of parents whose children attend Paularino Elementary printed bilingual flyers encouraging people to put on old clothes and come by for a day of cleaning. The Newport-Mesa school district provided cleaning supplies.

By 9 a.m. Saturday, the Paularino campus was peppered with several dozen parents, as well as scores of students walking across the playground carrying brooms, rags and hoses instead of textbooks.

“I have been scrubbing everywhere,” said Scott Wade, who will be in the fourth grade when school starts in two weeks. “It is good to clean the school.”

The ragtag cleaning crew found wooden doors that were rotting, food stains in the cafeteria and walls covered with dirt and fingerprints.

Parts of the school looked like they had not been cleaned in a long time, said John Noland, who has three children at Paularino. He and his wife, Jan, helped organize the event.

“We told people to bring their kids because they would appreciate their school more if they had to clean it,” John Noland said. “If the (students) just show up at school on the first day and it is already clean, maybe they wouldn’t appreciate it as much.”

“I have been scrubbing and washing chairs and tables,” said second-grader Kara Jenkins, who agreed that her school is starting to look better.