State of Utah Legislation Authorizes Best Practices Innovation Project at Provo City School District
Utah State Legislature included a project for Innovation and documenting best practices in the appropriations bill passed the last week of the 2010 legislative session. The governor has already signed the bill into law. The bill establishes developing and reporting “best practices” through benchmarking in schools statewide . The bill was sponsored by state Senator Howard Stephenson, chairman of the Education Committee.Dr. Randall Merrill, Provo City School District Superintendent of Schools said “The Provo City School District is very interested in participating in a study for the purpose of determining whether a uniform standard of cleaning will result in higher productivity of custodial personnel, a cleaner and healthier environment, and an environment that is more conducive to the education of children.” Provo School District was selected for the study and funding has been committed to perform an (OS1) Pilot Program for the Innovation Project.
Joe Gledhill, Director of Facilities for Provo City Schools said, “We are excited to be involved in the project and will report our findings to the Utah State Board of Education by October 2010 as mandated by the legislation. ManageMen, Inc. Has been selected to assist us in the pilot program and will be working with us to establish the best practices benchmarks.” Establishing a uniform cleaning standard and working to reduce turnover are two of the projects key goals.
“This is a huge step in janitorial services”, said John Walker, President of ManageMen, Inc., “as far as we know this is the first attempt anywhere to establish a uniform cleaning standard for public schools K-12. We are honored to have been selected by the Provo City School District and the Utah State Board of Education for the Innovation project.”
Dr. Jeffery Campbell, Chair of the Brigham Young University Facilities Management Program and IFMA fellow, has agreed to act as advisor to the project. He noted that janitorial operations are, along with energy and maintenance one of the big three budget silos in facility operations. “Janitorial is the biggest expense of the three” Campbell observes. “Of the three silos, janitorial operates almost completely with a lack of cleaning standards and best practices.”
The initial communications planning meeting was held in the Provo City School District Board room on March 23, 2010. The Meeting was conducted by Joe Gledhill. John Walker made a presentation to the identified stakeholders including volunteer principals, custodians, and administrators. Dr. Campbell, Jill Melton and Ben Walker assisted in the presentation. Jeff Hawkins led volunteers who came forward and applied for the first pilot in the project.
Results of the project will be reported on a new website to be developed by the Utah State Board of Education. The final results and benchmarks will be posted in October.