Janitor Gets To Watch His Daughter Teach In The Same School Where He Built A Better Life

December 11, 2025

For more than two decades, James Corrao has quietly opened classroom doors before sunrise, polished hallways, and offered a friendly word to countless students as a custodian in Worcester Public Schools.

But last November, he experienced something entirely new: watching his own daughter teach in the very building where he spent years working to give her a brighter future.

Credit: James Corrao (Jimmy Cash)

Corrao, a lifelong Bostonian, was just 19 when he chose sobriety. After losing his father to an overdose at age nine, he had spent much of his youth trying to outrun grief. When his girlfriend told him she was expecting their daughter, Annabelle, he felt a moment of clarity that changed the course of his life.

“I knew if I didn’t stop then, I wasn’t going to make it,” he told TODAY.com. “And I wanted to be someone my daughter could count on.”

He kept that promise.

Credit: James Corrao (Jimmy Cash)

Corrao took a job as a custodian in 2004. When a position opened at the school Annabelle attended in fourth grade, he jumped at the chance. The idea of seeing her throughout the day felt like a blessing.

This past November, Annabelle returned to that same school — but this time as the teacher.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Jimmy Cash- janitor w/ stamina (@jimmycashrules)

In a sweet moment that has gone viral on Instagram, Annabelle teaches a group of second graders while Corrao, filming from the back, raises his hand and jokingly asks, “Can you eat the flowers?”

Corrao described the moment as “surreal”.

“Watching her in there with those kids… I was in awe,” he said.

It was a full-circle moment that reminded him why he chose a different path all those years ago.