Teachers At A Minsk School Are Being Forced To Mop The Floors In Their Classrooms
- 19.08.2026, 14:34
All the cleaning ladies quit.
A teacher at one of the capital's schools inna_kravchuk_ wrote on Threads about a new directive from the school principal.
“I’m a teacher,” she writes. “I returned to work after vacation. The principal gathered everyone and announced that there are no longer any janitors at the school, so teachers must do all the cleaning and washing. How is that even possible?! And this is Minsk.”
Many social media users wrote that the school principal is breaking the law with such decisions and advised her to contact the Ministry of Education. The website Charter97.org features some of the comments:
— That’s why I quit. Working as a teacher while also having to paint the school and mop the floors on the side. And not getting any extra pay for it. Sorry, but four years of that really took a toll on my nerves. It was also a school in Minsk.
— There’s a document—I think it’s a job description. It lists your responsibilities. You have the right to refuse to do anything that isn’t in that document.
— Then they should pay for the technical staff’s work and revise the contract. Everything must be done strictly by the law; otherwise, you’ll end up doing everyone else’s work.
— What kind of nonsense is that? Is there no one to complain to? What does the Ministry of Education say?
— Teachers have job responsibilities—read them again. And if they force you to sign the revised version, don’t sign it. Replacing colleagues is one thing, but replacing support staff—that’s crossing the line. The custodian is usually responsible for the support staff. Why doesn’t he have a full staff complement? Let them mop the floors with their own staff. You can always write to obrazovanie.by about the legality of such instructions. Let the janitors write your lesson plans and grade your notebooks for you, then.
— I did an internship at a summer camp; as punishment, the camp took away our cleaning lady—guess who ended up cleaning everything, including the bathrooms?
— It’s the same thing in hospitals.
— Maybe it’s better to teach students to work? In Soviet schools, the cleaning lady only cleaned the hallway. The students cleaned the classrooms. Always.
— If the principal were to clean the restrooms, I’d sweep my classroom—no problem.