Colonia High School yearly awards the Excellence in Education Award to two staff members at CHS – a teacher and a supporting staff member. This year CHS honored James Tumblety with this award.
Nominees go through a rigorous process to win the Excellence in Education Award. All staff members nominate both a teacher and a support person that they feel deserve to be honored. From there, Vice Principal Mrs. Murphy whittles down the list of nominees and chooses a select few. Mrs. Murphy then forms a committee that evaluates all nominees and scores them. Mrs. Murphy then selects winners based on these scores.
Generally, a support person is any staff member at Colonia High School that is not a teacher. The Excellence in Education Award considers all supporting staff members: nurses, secretaries, counselors, and custodians. Thus, the process of selecting a Support Person of the Year is just as tricky as selecting a Teacher of the Year.
It came as a surprise to no one when Head Custodian Mr. James Tumblety was selected as Support Person of the Year.
James Tumblety
Tumblety has been working at Colonia High School for eight years as Head Custodian. He came to CHS in 2010 when he was out of work and looking for a job, and has been here ever since. Tumblety was originally interested in Colonia because all four of his children went here. He has loved Colonia ever since.
Tumblety enjoys and takes great pride in his work at Colonia. His favorite part of the job is “getting to meet all the teachers and students.” He’s also proud of the way that Colonia’s landscape has improved, and enjoys seeing the achievements of all his hard work.
As Head Custodian, Tumblety has many responsibilities on his plate. He is directly in charge of working with Colonia’s outside deals. Tumblety also works directly with CHS Principal Mr. Pace to ensure that everything of importance gets done.
Tumblety had no concerns to report about working at Colonia. His only major complaint was about removing snow. He loves the work he does for Colonia, and loves the school.
Another custodian, Mrs. Theresa, reports Tumblety to be “an excellent boss and very fair to all custodians. He treats us all with love and keeps our school clean.”
Tumblety works hard to keep CHS up and running, alongside his fellow custodians. When the Middle States Commission on Higher Education evaluation team was at Colonia High, they noticed and added to their report that Tumblety takes so much pride in the building and its appearance.
Being a Custodian
The Colonia High School custodians are in charge of all maintenance in the school. They are also responsible for all deals with outside contractors and carpenters. Colonia’s Custodians are in constant motion and are always on their feet.
At Colonia, there are only three custodians working during the school day. Custodians are dispersed widely during the entire day, each custodian doing a job vital to Colonia High School. From working lunches, to dealing with bathroom emergencies- Colonia’s custodians do a little bit of everything.
Tumblety had this to say about his job, “A custodian does basically whatever the principal needs to be done. They clean rooms, move things, paint things, stuff like that. Outside we clean up the field, the field house. A lot of responsibility. And there is only three of us working days, five of us at night. It’s rough.”
Colonia’s Custodians work dutifully daily in order for CHS to remain at its finest. Colonia’s custodians are the main reason the building is in great shape.
