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Cleanliness
Keeping a school full of children and teenagers clean can be a challenge. Not only does cleanliness involve the general cleaning of the school, it also involves the practice of proper personal hygiene, i.e., hand washing, to minimize the transmission of communicable illness and diseases. Cleanliness is the responsibility of all staff and students, not just the custodial staff.
Consider:
- Is the custodial staff required to go through some sort of course on proper cleaning and sanitization techniques and principles? Are they practicing those sanitization principles, i.e., cleaning with germicides? Are they wearing masks if they need to, i.e., when exposed to the respirable droplets of saliva or urine, or through the dust of feces from infected wild rodents, especially the deer mouse?
- Are garbages emptied regularly so germs do not get a chance to grow?
- Does the staff know how to properly clean up “bodily fluids”, i.e., blood, drainage from scrapes and cuts, feces, urine, vomit, saliva and drainage from any orifice (i.e. nose, ears)?
- How are the floors cleaned? Are your floors carpeted? It is generally harder to clean up messes on carpets than on bare floor like linoleum. As a result germs can grow and cause illness. What is the current cleaning procedure?
- Do the staff members know how to protect themselves when exposed to bodily fluids? Are there protective barriers, i.e., gloves? Gloves should be kept in all areas of high risk, e.g. health room, maintenance areas, main office, any classroom where risk of spills is particularly high. Gloves should routinely be worn when direct hand contact with body fluids is anticipated; treating bloody noses, handling clothes soiled by incontinence or vomit, cleaning small spills by hand, etc.
- Do the students handle their own "body fluids" as appropriate (for age, state of health, etc)? When feasible, students should dispose of their own tissues after blowing their nose, apply pressure to stop nose bleeds and dispose of tissues/paper towels used for a bloody nose; wash own scrapes/cuts, etc.
- Do they know how to dispose of contaminated items?
For more info:
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