Is Ineffective School Cleaning Putting Your Students At Risk?

Protecting Your Students and Staff With Proper School Cleaning

Children, as many of us have come to realize, have the uncanny ability to move illness from place to place with ease. Many parents have come to dread the cold and flu season simply because their child is going to bring it home no matter what they do. With so many kids moving about and poorly washed hands, fingers in the mouth and nose as far as the eye can see, is this any surprise? Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do to keep your child from getting sick but proper school cleaning can go a long way in reducing the spread of colds, flus and other viruses. If your school cleaning service isn’t doing enough to reduce the spread of illness on campus, assuring your students and staff stay healthy during cold and flu season, it might be time to upgrade your school cleaning services.

What the ISSA’s Research Says About Your School Cleaning Service

Wondering if your school cleaning is doing everything they could to reduce disease in your facility? In fact, a lot of time and research has been devoted to looking at where school cleaning comes up short and how it contributes to illness year round. Far too many janitorial services and school cleaning services ignore important best practices that contribute to an overall healthier learning environment. Let’s take a look at what the ISSA’s research uncovered:

• The shared equipment like communal computers and table surfaces were almost twice as dirty as the restroom toilet seats.
• In the majority of elementary schools, most classrooms had a higher bacterial load than the restrooms.
• Touch points like door handles, desks and railings were almost always overlooked by school cleaning services.
• While most surfaces appeared to be clean by visual inspection, they had an unsafe bacterial and viral load.
• Gym mats were among the worst offenders as they served as a haven for bacteria brought by dirty mops, sweat, grime and other contaminants.

What Are Touch Points & Why Should You Care?

Touch points and hot spots are mentioned above, but what exactly are these? Well, a hot spot is any object that sees regular use in your building such as but not limited to: computer mice, door handles, stair railings, desks, playground equipment and even shared writing utensils. The ISSA’s research confirms what we might have guessed, these high traffic areas have some of the highest bacterial and viral loads of anything in your facility. Lots of hands touching throughout the day makes them an easy hub for germs to hitch a ride on students and staff. One kid with a stomach bug touches his mouth and then touches a railing and every person after that is exposed. Left unchecked, these everyday objects are sure to get people sick which will cause increased absences and poor student performance. If your janitorial services company isn’t paying special attention to disinfecting and sanitizing hot spots, then your students and staff’s health is at risk. Don’t settle for just a visible clean, make sure your school cleaning service is helping safeguard everyone’s health with proper cleaning practices.

Healthy Students = Better Performance

Having an effective school cleaning service impacts you in more ways than might be obvious. Of course it helps prevent student illness and absenteeism, but did you know that health based cleaning translates directly into enhanced learning outcomes? Not only do students get more class days, but healthy students means healthy parents which is another large contributor to improved learning outcomes. Higher rates of illness can be directly correlated to diminished standardized testing scores and lower school performance. Proper school cleaning isn’t just about health, it markedly improves the quality of the education that you are providing your students.

What Separates Science Based Cleaning From the Rest

The school cleaning services you want to contract with are those that understand the science behind effective cleaning. Regardless of if you are looking for green cleaning, K-12 cleaning, university cleaning, private or religious school cleaning, or maybe even campus cleaning, a school cleaning service with a solid background in science based cleaning is going to outperform the competition every time. “What exactly gives them this competitive edge?” you may be wondering, here is a brief list:

• They understand how critical hot spots and touch points are to properly disinfect and sanitize and are aware of common high traffic objects like door handles, shared computers and desks.
• They have a detailed understanding of the science behind the work that they do and use it to create better cleaning solutions.
• They are intimately familiar with the cleaning chemicals that they use and are aware of how, when, where and how long (dwell times) to use them for.
• They keep up with industry innovation and are constantly on the cutting edge of school cleaning rather utilizing best practices throughout your facility.

Companies that work toward the standard of “good enough” are never going to deliver a quality service to you for the price that you are paying. Don’t settle for less than you, your students and your staff are worth.

The Best Partner for the Best Results

Your top priority is providing a safe, healthy and positive learning environment for your students. The first step in doing this is partnering with a school cleaning service that will takes these values just as seriously as you do. At Stathakis, we work with every type of educational environment and value your student’s health and safety just as much as you do. We know that not everyone is cut out for school cleaning and have actively worked to provide the best possible service we can at an affordable price for over thirty years. Can we help you? If you would like to learn how we help schools with effective maintenance all while staying on budget, please contact us at (800) 278-1884.