The time of the year is rolling around again when school administrators, teachers and students alike are crossing days off the calendar until school ends. While students and teachers will soon be breaking for the summer, the work is just beginning for your school custodians and janitorial service providers. The usual bustling halls of a school being empty until late August or early September is the perfect time for your janitorial and custodial services to perform necessary maintenance, and get your school back to tip to condition for the coming school year. What are some ways that you and your janitorial company can work together to get the most out of these less hectic months to get your campus ready for the first day of school and the rest of the coming school year?
School cleaning over the summer should never be a fly by the seat of your pants kind of situation. Your janitorial services company should always have a clear, thorough, and well thought out plan in order to get the most out of the hiatus of summer. Not only will this benefit your school, it will allow you to keep your school cleaning company accountable for the work that needs to done and keeps everyone in the loop on what the school's priorities are. It can even help to make sure that lesser cleaned and focused on areas get the attention they need. After such a plan is written, you will find that it is easier to keep track of what needs to be done and when the first day of school rolls around, have a cleaner and better maintained school.
With the absence of people in the school's halls and classrooms during summer months, make sure that floor cleaning, detailing, waxing and refinishing are at the top of your priorities list. Often floor cleaning is disruptive to the school learning environment and weekends often simply aren’t long enough, so there is no better time then when there is no school. As you know, Michigan weather and the constant traffic of students in and out can be hard on our flooring. As the school year wears on, dirt, salt, grit and all other manner of sediment have worn their way into and onto the floors. Ongoing floor maintenance like carpet cleaning, floor stripping and scrubbing is necessary to extend the life of your flooring against this onslaught of filth. Making note of areas or classrooms that seem to be the most worn down can give your commercial floor cleaner the information they need to squeeze a few more years out of your floors and carpets with some of latest advances in technology leaving them looking brand new.
Next in line for a deep cleaning are likely your school’s restrooms and locker rooms which are often hit equally as hard your flooring during the year. Heavy and prolonged use throughout school years leave these areas in needing extra attention. As such, summer provides and excellent window to provide some deep, much need cleaning and repairs to these critical locations. Make sure to ask your school cleaning company to tackle the grout and drains of your locker rooms, clean the stall doors, walls, ceilings, fix and clean vents and light fixtures, as well as make any necessary repairs to other fixtures in your restrooms.
A good measure of your commercial school cleaning company is to take a look inside of you janitorial closet. If you don't see an immaculate closet, complete with labeled supplies and safety materials, clean mops, well maintained equipment and an overall organized system, then you custodian is probably giving your school less attention than requires. Summer is the best time to check your janitorial closet and present any issues you may have so that your school janitorial service provider can remedy them. To keep your school safe and clean, have them service and clean equipment, properly dispose of old or incorrectly marked product and to come up with a plan for the future to keep the janitorial closet in tip top condition.
You CAN and SHOULD judge your school cleaning company by the quality and state of their equipment. When equipment hasn’t been properly cleaned and maintained or simply is of low quality, summer is the time to ask your cleaning company to step up their game. Make sure that your cleaning company does an inspection of their equipment to make sure everything functions, to share or create a maintenance schedule to keep you and them on track, and to replace equipment as needed. Further, if you school cleaning service does not employ the color coded rag system, a system shown to reduce cross contamination in your school, require that they do to keep your students safe.
Summer is one of the best times to address issues that couldn’t be addressed during the year because they were too disruptive. For the same reason, summer is also the perfect time to catch up and work ahead on maintenance to not only fix existing problems but prevent new ones from occurring during the busy school year. Preventative maintenance is the best way to minimize failures that would otherwise disrupt classes and learning during the school year. Make sure to ask your maintenance provider to inspect your school for potential issues and address them before they become severe problems. Great places to start are: HVAC, plumbing and electrical, as well as other electronic equipment. Repairing this equipment during the summer is the best way to make the school year less stressful.
Green cleaning programs are the future of school cleaning. Not only are they getting significantly more wallet friendly, they help protect the health of your students, staff and parents. So, is your janitorial company using greener products to keep your school clean? If not, summer is the best time to take a look what green cleaning solutions can offer your school. Contact your janitorial cleaning company and ask about their green cleaning programs and how your school can get involved and benefit. Summer even offers the perfect time to complete the extra training for your janitorial and custodial staff!
What things should you be keeping track off when it comes to the cleaning system that is in place? For instance, is your janitorial service provider keeping your school a clean and healthy environment conducive to working and learning? Does your janitorial company regularly inspect the work of their teams to improve the quality of cleaning? Steps like these keep you commercial and janitorial cleaning companies accountable and consistent in their work as well as driving a streamlining and improving of the process as a whole. Even further, does your janitorial service provider use industry advances such as team cleaning? Is their equipment modernized and well maintained to best maximize results? Most janitorial services are good, and with communication between the school and provider, they can be made great.
Summers are the perfect time to train and work with a new cleaning staff and company. Low risk and low stress, it is the perfect time to fix problems and work out a plan before the hectic year begins anew. Whatever the coming year throws at you, be ready by having a well trained staff that is prepared to tackle any challenge.
Summer is one of, if not the best time to take a look at other Michigan school cleaning companies if you aren’t entirely happy with the job you current janitorial service is doing. After all, the work your janitorial service provider does is a reflection of the cleanliness and safety of your school. Having everything in order and looking presentable is a must. Is your janitorial servicer keeping everything the way you want it to look? Are they easy to communicate with and met all of your schools cleaning and repair needs? Do you feel the work they do is commensurate of the amount that you pay? If not, then it is time to consider different options when it comes to your commercial cleaner. A professional, effective, and certified Detroit school cleaning company is out they’re and your staff students and self a worth the search.
Finding the perfect school janitorial and cleaning service isn’t a simple process, and as you’re aware, takes research, dedication and patience. The upside to all this work is that a solid partnership and relationship with the janitorial service that meets and exceeds your schools needs will make your life in far easier in the long run. So, what qualities constitute a commercial cleaning company that's good for your school?
Get the maximum value out of your summer down time and work with or find a new janitorial cleaning company that you and your school will get the most out of.