Encouragement that sticks

Maddy Barnes, custodian at Aurora High School, is not that many years out of high school herself, so she knows the importance of an encouraging word to teenagers. This past school year she has found an unconventional way to connect with the students she sees in the halls every day through notes of encouragement written on sticky notes. Her strategy has been so successful that students and staff have not only kept the notes she leaves in places like the restrooms, but have in some cases left similar messages for her and others. 
“It was really important for me to make an impact,” said Barnes, “and just be a good role model for the kids. So I started putting up notes with positive messages on them in the girls bathroom and they were just up for grabs. You could take one and put it in your pocket for the day or stick it in a folder so you could see it or whatever. I just thought it would be a cool thing to pass along.”
The notes contain short upbeat messages such as “Just keep swimming,” “In case no one’s told you today, you’re beautiful” and “Don’t worry, be happy” and they have had something of a viral effect in the school. 
Barnes says she was a little unsure how the students would react to the notes when she started by placing several in the girls restroom, but the girls “really liked it” and suggested she do the same in the boys restroom. She said again she was uncertain how they would respond, worrying they might take it as a joke, but afterwards three of the boys came up and thanked her in person. 
“One of them even asked to give me a hug and I thought that was crazy,” she said. “You wouldn’t think that the boys would have that kind of reaction.” 
“When they see me in the halls, you high five and you ask about their day really quick or like what’s been going on in their life,” Barnes related. “Then I do my best to remember all the things that all the kids tell me because I like to ask follow up questions, because it means a lot to them when you’re consistent with remembering things that they’ve told you. You know, it makes them feel seen.”
Barnes says the sticky note idea was inspired by some of her classmates in the charter high school she attended in Fort Collins, Colo. They anonymously left notes of encouragement for other students to find. 
After moving to Aurora in 2021, the 21-year-old Barnes first took a job working in the lunchroom at the high school and then transitioned to the janitorial staff in January of last year. Although she graduated from high school with a college associates degree at the age of 17, Barnes said she is still trying to figure out what she wants to do as a career.
“I wanted to get some college credits out of the way because I really didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she said. “So that’s why I’m a janitor currently. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be.”
As a self-proclaimed “clean freak,” Barnes said she actually enjoys the work. 
“So cleaning is fun for me,” she shared, “and plus, I just kind of get to listen to my tunes and jam out for the day. And I get to meet a lot of different teachers because I clean their rooms so I get to talk to a lot of people.”
The “people” part of the job also extends to the students through her sticky note encouragement and by working alongside special needs students and others who help out with the janitorial work. She said sometimes that interaction includes those who have been sentenced to community service hours. 
“And so I take them with me to get their community service hours,” she said. “That’s another way I’ve connected with students, just working side by side with them and kind of help helping make it less of a punishment and more of a learning experience.” 
Another way Barnes has entered the students’ world is through producing short, funny TikTok videos on various subjects ranging from her music (she sings and plays the guitar), to her love of collecting vintage 1950s clothing to her work as a custodian. In one of those videos Barnes displays her “school custodian starter kit” consisting of such items as sneakers, a vacuum, a walkie talkie, a thick ring of keys and a no-spill coffee cup. 
“So, I started posting funny TikToks of me at work,” she said, “you know, making fun of the janitor life or whatever. And a kid came across one of my videos so then the whole school found out about it and it became a thing. Everyone always looked forward to the janitor video of the week. I’ve just made the most out of it. I feel like people don’t really view being a janitor as a very desirable position, but I have fun with it. And even though I’m not in the classroom it doesn’t mean you’re not making a difference or you can’t be a role model. I think, being young, I kind of understand some of the things they are going through because I was just in high school like four years ago.”
Barnes’s sticky note encouragement campaign has not only been a hit with students, but teachers have taken notice as well. One of those staff members is business education teacher Dana Thompson, who walked into his classroom one day to find what he described as “an awesome sticky note on my monitor.” 
“It just makes your day when you see something like that,” said Thompson, “and so it’s still up there and I leave it up there.”
Thompson said Barnes has done the same for the majority of the teachers whose rooms she cleans including his wife, Sheri, who is the school’s speech pathologist. 
Thompson said Barnes’s messages are “just little notes that give the kids a little bit of inspiration; give them a little bit of hope, so if they’re having a bad day it lifts them up a little bit.”  
He said he has seen students take the notes and put them in their locker, in a notebook or perhaps on their school-supplied Chromebook laptops. He said when a bunch of notes are put out in one location, all will be gone after a day or two because the students have taken them.  
Barnes’s efforts appear to be having the intended effect on the atmosphere at the school. She reports that students have not only kept the notes, but have passed them along to others and even written encouraging notes themselves, including to her. 
“I’ve had a teacher – she teaches a youth group – she was telling me that one week she was trying to get the kids to say something they were thankful for and one kid pulled one of my sticky notes out of his pocket,” Barnes said. 
The student went on to say he was thankful for the note the janitor had left in the bathroom. 
Thompson said he believes the school is better off for Barnes’s efforts.
“She is a quality individual who makes people’s lives better in the school, I know that,” he said.