Schools – ManageMen

As regulations begin to loosen and signs of normalcy begin to appear following the pandemic, officials have started to look at how we can reduce the impact of a future pandemic. That’s a good thing—this type of response has led to a number of public health and safety measures over our history. For example, after the cholera outbreak, substantial improvements made to sanitation and drinking water systems were responsible for the clean water many of us drink today.

One of the primary issues this pandemic has brought to our attention was just how easily viruses can travel in indoor environments. This has led to experts sounding the alarm for better indoor air quality (IAQ) measures and regulations.

A few recent headlines:

Federal officials seek better rules about schools’ indoor air quality in NBC News.

Covid-19 proved bad indoor air quality makes us sick. We can fix that. in Vox.

Before the next pandemic, it’s time to regulate indoor air quality in Fast Company.

If your manager, safety director or executive team has yet to discuss indoor air quality and how cleaning can impact it, keep on reading, because they will. Cleaning can have a massive impact on the indoor air quality of a building—through seemingly simple things like the products we use, how we maintain tools and the processes we use to clean.

It might not seem like a big deal, but if a cleaner vacuums the floor before dusting surfaces, is he or she effectively removing unwanted material from the building?

No.

And that remaining dust impacts IAQ.

But we should start there—with the definition of “clean.”

What Is Clean?

We generally follow Dr. Michael Berry’s definition, which is that “clean” is an environment free of unwanted matter. So whether or not that environment is a hard or soft surface or the air, “clean” means that it is completely free of unwanted matter, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dust, bacteria or viruses.

A lot of people think that through the act of cleaning, much of the unwanted matter is removed. Sometimes this is the case.

But sometimes it’s not. And that’s what we want to focus on for this post.

When not done properly, cleaning can have a negative impact on the health of building occupants.

In his book, “Protecting the Built Environment: Cleaning for Health,” Michael Berry, Ph.D., says the following:

“A clean environment is sanitary. When a sanitary condition exists, an adverse health effect is unlikely. When environments are not properly maintained, sooner or later they will become unsanitary. There is no doubt about this natural fact. (108).

He goes on to discuss the microscopic nature of pollutants in our indoor environments—an issue that was evidenced by the pandemic. Too often, we clean for appearance. Meaning that we clean for what the eye can see. To clean for health, we need to also effectively manage what we can’t see.

“What we think our cleaning equipment is accomplishing can be different from what it’s really doing,” said Berry. “Sometimes we assume that our cleaning equipment is extracting pollutants when it really isn’t. This is a common problem.

“When we vacuum a carpet or floor, we usually see particles 40um and larger (a micrometer is 1/one millionth of a meter). When we’re finished, we can look around and feel confident that we have removed particles. And we probably have, but only the large ones. To protect our customers’ health, we must remove particles of all sizes, especially small ones of 10um and less. They are too small to be seen by the eye alone. Small articles call for our best efforts and equipment. Not only are they hard to manage and capture, but they also tend to accumulate over time,” (109).

How could IAQ measures impact the way we clean?

Because cleaning is inextricably tied to the quality of the indoor air, it’s probably a safe bet to assume that changes are coming to the way you clean if you’re not cleaning for health.

Here are just a few ways that cleaning can have a negative impact on our health:

Leaving behind cleaning chemical residue
Improperly diluting or mixing cleaning chemicals
Improper maintenance of cleaning equipment (e.g. not replacing vacuum filters on a regular basis)
Not using the right cleaning equipment for the job
Not monitoring temperature, moisture or ventilation when cleaning
Improper disposal of waste (in solid, liquid or gas forms)
Lack of cleaning frequency
Absence of training
Ineffective cleaning processes

As Joseph Allen and John Macomber suggest in their book, “Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity,” cleaning equipment, such as a vacuum, is a healthcare tool.

“If you think of a several hundred dollar vacuum as a tool to clean your kids’ Cheerios off the floor, that seems exorbitant. But if you reframe that vacuum as a tool to protect you and your kids from chemicals and allergens in the dust, well that investment in a good vacuum now looks cheap. And it is. No one in their right mind should be spending a few hundred bucks for a sexy vacuum, but everyone should be spending that much for a vacuum that keeps your home or office healthier” (109).

So, what are the processes, tools and equipment being used to clean your building? Are you cleaning for health or appearance?

If you’re thinking about making a change, give us a call! We can put you in contact with one of the members of the Simon Institute who can speak to how cleaning for health has transformed their facilities.

Should we care about dirty schools? Well, the short answer is yes, but probably not for the reasons you think. While visible dirt may keep students and staff from feeling positive about their environment (known as topophilia), a growing body of evidence has found that dirty schools may pose larger challenges— resulting in things like lower test scores and increased absenteeism.

This is an issue in normal times, but an even greater problem coming out of a pandemic. With a considerable number of children having lost valuable learning time, schools need every edge they can get to keep students engaged and performing.

There are almost 130,000 K-12 schools in the U.S. and little oversight over how they are cleaned. In many schools, public and private, you’ll find vacuum cleaners that belch out dust, custodial closets that showcase a host of expired and outdated products, and custodians that wear a wide variety of hats—they do everything from keeping external walkways clean to vacuuming classrooms to stewarding after school events.

As any parent, aunt, uncle or teacher knows, kids can be dirty. Really dirty. And within our public schools alone, there are more 50.6 million students, based on federal projections for the fall of 2021.

In the effort to provide students with a safe and clean learning environment, what other factors should educators identify for that might contribute to a dirty school?

Poor maintenance of cleaning equipment. You have to clean your cleaning equipment. Replacing vacuum filters, regularly laundering microfiber or other cleaning cloths, cleaning out mop buckets are all preventative maintenance strategies that help make for cleaner schools and longer lasting equipment.
Cross contamination between areas. Most schools have kitchens, restrooms and classrooms. When the systems aren’t in place to prevent movement of cleaning tools and equipment between areas, the same cleaning cloth might be used to clean a restroom sink, kitchen counter and/or a desk.
Underestimating cleaning frequencies. In a recent study that analyzed microbes on desks in three Connecticut schools, researchers took samples and examined how cleaning impacted surface microbial concentrations. Study authors concluded, “Current school surface cleaning protocols and cycles may be ineffective at reducing student exposure to fungal allergens and microbes of human origin.”
Limited training for custodial workers. In many school custodial, training encompasses a few days (or hours) of following someone around to learn the job. Very few cleaning operations have a comprehensive training program in place that not only teaches employees HOW to clean, but WHY they clean. Training should not only provide workers with the overall understanding of why their jobs are critical and how cleaning impacts the health of people in the buildings they clean, but also protocols for how and when to perform specific cleaning tasks.
The absence of cleaning systems. Cleaning isn’t about pushing dirt around, it’s about removing dirt and unwanted substances from the environment. And without the proper cleaning systems in place (e.g. moving from the top of the room to the bottom, disinfecting without cleaning), there’s a good chance custodians in your buildings are just moving dirt from one place to the next.

The pandemic has changed the way so many look at cleaning, and this is increasingly true in our nation’s school systems. How we clean and maintain our schools has a direct impact on our students. As organizations look to utilize federal funding through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and other funding resources designated to help schools successfully reopen, it’s a great opportunity to examine the equipment, processes and training used by custodial workers.

Successfully managing a school environment is a necessary educational investment. But it’s one that pays off.

Learn more about how you can work to clean up your school in this post: Why Dirty Schools are a Big Problem—and What We Can Do to Clean Them Up https://managemen.com/why-dirty-schools-are-a-big-problem-and-what-we-can-do-to-clean-them-up/

How Can Cleaning Impact Indoor Air Quality?

What Makes a School Dirty?