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without knocking them over and to negotiate a series of turns and stops to demonstrate their knowledge of campus safety protocols," the release explains. "In the Duct Tape Wars, they had to manip- ulate long duct tape ribbons connected to a magic marker to write the word 'teamwork' on a pad," it adds. In the spaghetti structure event, they were tasked with building the tallest possible structure from spaghetti and masking tape that would be capable of hold- ing a marshmallow at its top. The Olympic Games was a series of timed events involving bowling with toilet paper rolls, solving a three-dimensional puzzle made of plastic pipe, and balancing a tennis ball on parallel mop handles. The Tuttle Elementary School team had the highest score at the end of the day, earning it the gold trophy. The Venice Elementary con- testants won the silver, and the Toledo Blade Elementary team earned the bronze. "The Sarasota County Schools custodial staff is widely recognized as one of the most effi- cient in Florida, cleaning 8,820,835 square feet of floor space in 1,213 buildings every day with a staff of 320," the release points out. "The average district custodian cleans more than 27,000 square feet of space a day." The Florida Department of Education stan- dard is 19,000 square feet per day, the release notes. "Staffing the district at that level would require 144 more custodians." % Pine View Head Custodian Marcia Hill (left) and driver Nikita Korsakov negotiate the tennis ball portion of the Golf Cart Rodeo under the watchful eye of monitor Brenda Green during Custodial Day. Contributed photo Sarasota News Leader July 11, 2014 Page 84