Clean Isn’t Enough: Why Summer Maintenance Is Becoming the Biggest Challenge for Schools

Summer Maintenance Has Changed — and Schools Are Feeling the Impact

For school facility teams, summer has always been the window to reset — deep cleaning floors, restoring surfaces, and preparing buildings for the year ahead.

Today, that window is shrinking.

Between staffing shortages, compressed academic calendars, and aging facilities, many districts are finding that traditional summer maintenance models no longer work the way they once did. Custodial teams are being asked to do more in less time, often without the specialized equipment or manpower required for restorative flooring work.

And while daily janitorial cleaning remains essential, it’s no longer enough on its own to support healthy, high-performing learning environments.

“Summer Slam”: The Reality of Summer School Maintenance Constraints

Most schools have just 8–10 weeks to complete the work that can’t happen during the academic year — carpet extraction, terrazzo polishing, refinishing resilient floors, and addressing wear that’s built up over months of heavy use.

At the same time, many districts are navigating:

• Open custodial positions and high turnover
• Limited access to specialized surface care equipment
• Budget pressure that makes overtime and temporary labor difficult

The result is a growing gap between what needs to be done and what in-house teams realistically have the capacity to complete.

Why School Flooring Maintenance Requires a Different Strategy

Flooring is one of the largest surface areas in any school — and one of the most influential when it comes to indoor air quality, flooring safety, and long-term asset performance.

When restorative surface care is delayed or skipped:

• Embedded debris remains trapped in flooring materials
• Slip resistance and traction can decline
• Finishes wear unevenly, leading to premature replacement
• Long-term maintenance costs quietly increase

This is why more districts are rethinking how flooring fits into their overall maintenance strategy.

A Smarter Way Forward for School Flooring Maintenance

Rather than trying to do everything internally, many schools are adopting a hybrid approach — keeping daily cleaning in-house while partnering with specialized providers for periodic, high-intensity surface care.

This model helps custodial teams stay focused on day-to-day cleanliness while ensuring flooring systems receive the expert attention needed to protect health, performance, and budgets — especially during the critical summer months.

To explore this approach in more detail, including how surface care impacts indoor air quality, asset preservation, and long-term planning, we’ve created Beyond Clean: The Science of Maintaining Healthy Learning Environments.