"Wonderbot," as the custodial team named it, is an automated cleaning robot that scrubs and polishes floors without needing a human to push it. It still requires custodial assistant Jason Huffman's sentient touch, but he can start the machine and walk away to work on one of the other many duties a custodian must finish before kids return to school the next day.
"It's like a little baby, you kind of got to baby it," Huffman said, describing how he has to check up on the bot several times throughout its cleaning to replace water or get it out of a jam, for example.
Spokane Public Schools recently purchased an armada of 14 of the robot floor cleaners, stationing one at each middle and high school after a successful trial period at Rogers High School. The machines cost a total of $1.08 million, said district spokesperson Ryan Lancaster, with a two-year warranty on labor and three years on parts. They're purchased from industrial and commercial cleaning retailer Tennant.
It's a bid for "efficiency" in cleaning schools, seeking to make the process quicker for custodians already dealing with staffing shortages and seemingly never-ending to-do lists.
"They've been particularly valuable in commons and gym spaces, those large square footages where historically you'd have a custodian pushing a cleaning machine that's scrubbing and washing the floor," said Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Adam Swinyard. "Whereas now, these robots can do all that autonomously, while the custodians are then able to go and do other types of cleaning."
The robots, which district officials want to be used at least three times a week, are much like gigantic Roombas or smaller, self-driving Zambonis. Custodians put the machine in the desired room or floor, and it uses a camera to scan a barcode to learn where it is. Each time it cleans a room, the machine learns more about the floorplan, what objects may be in the way, and the fastest way to cover the desired surface area.
"Once it learns and learns and learns, the faster it's going to go," Huffman said.
Huffman said the bot isn't necessarily making his job faster or easier in the months that he's used it, but he expects it will eventually. It takes over an hour for the robot to clean each hallway he's responsible for, and during that time he can work on other tasks, but still needs to check in on Wonderbot regularly.
Travis Schulhauser, chief operations officer at the district, told the school board Wednesday that there's been "a lot of energy" from custodial teams with the addition of the robots.
"The energy is really about what they're able to do with their time now, rather than be frustrated that they can't get the gym cleaned five days a week like they want to during peak basketball season and things like that," Schulhauser told the school board.
Previously, custodians used the manual machines once per week, Lancaster said. Automated robots are used a minimum of three times a week. As of Tuesday, the robots logged over 1,500 hours cleaning more than 16.5 million square feet of schools.
Swinyard said the robots were purchased in a bid to fill gaps already on their custodial crew, and the district has not cut any positions or reduced staff as a result of the automation. Custodial crews are often left scrambling as staff call out sick, and Swinyard said there aren't enough reliable substitute custodians to make up for staffing shortages.
"Historically, that would mean spaces don't get cleaned, whereas when we have this level of automation, it allows us to maintain that level of cleanliness, even though we are facing staffing shortages," Swinyard said. "In our current context, it's less about, 'Oh, well, now you can reduce staffing levels.' It's really about, 'Well, you already have a staffing shortage,' and this helps compensate for it."
Sara Munro, president of Spokane Education Association, which represents custodians, said the union is aware of the automated cleaners. The employees' contracts have language that protects custodians' jobs from being replaced fully by automation like artificial intelligence, but such tools can be used to "support employees by reducing repetitive or administrative workload," the contract reads.
She said the robots were an example of lessening the workload for her members since they can turn on the cleaners and walk away to work on another task.
"I don't ever want to see a member lose a job, but the impact with these, they still require staff to monitor them, to set them, to work with them," Munro said. "If it's going to be something that makes their life easier, I'm happy about that."
Swinyard said the district is exploring other options for automation, like buying robots that can remove snow or mow the lawn, for example.
The cleaning robots don't seem to be evidence of machines "coming for" humans' jobs, Munro said.
"They cannot and will not replace a custodian and the work that they do," she said.
Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
© 2026 The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
