Back to school time is here, and with that comes pesky back to school germs infecting families and invading homes. Colds and germs spread like wildfire among students, parents, teachers, and school personnel. In schools, germs can be anywhere, but water fountains, doorknobs, hand rails, soap dispensers, gym equipment, keyboards and other electronics, are among the hot spots for germ growth and transmission. So, how does you and your children keep back to school germs away?
Back to School Germs Make You Sick
Schools are dirty, no matter how well they are cleaned, with hundreds or even thousands of people making their way through the halls on a daily basis. You never know when your child may spend the day at school and arrive home in the afternoon with a fever, a cold, the flu, a stomach ache, conjunctivitis (pink eye), or even lice. Cleaning at school, though takes place every day is often superficial and unable to reach all the germ-filled spaces and surfaces in your children’s schools.
Studies have shown that children in public school get sick more often than those at private schools and those who are homeschooled. In addition, other studies find those in childless homes are sick, on average, three to four weeks per year, while those with a single child at home are sick 18 weeks per year and with more than one child the average rises to 29 weeks annually. Most parents feel schools fail to properly clean and sanitize daily, allowing germs to multiply.
And for schools the task looms large, with trash cleared away, floors vacuumed, and bathrooms cleaned daily, the custodial staff in most schools work hard. Staff and students rate bathrooms as the place at school with the most germs, followed by the classrooms, the school cafeteria, the gym, and the nurse’s office. The truth is germs infest virtually everywhere students and staff touch during the day including door knobs, stairway railings, water fountains, desks, the toilet and bathroom doors, as well as their own and their classmates school supplies. And though students know and are encouraged to wash their hands often, the school has to take on the responsibility of sanitizing these trouble spots every day.
The CDC ( The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) statistics reveal more than 55 million students and seven million staff members in attendance daily in the U.S.’s more than 130,000 public schools. That figure alone explains how back to school germs can wreak havoc on learning through illnesses and the resulting absences.
What Can Be Done?
Though all the germs won’t likely be eradicated, there are several ways parents, students, and schools can reduce germ and improve those germ prone areas. The first is the encouragement of quality handwashing techniques for students, teachers, and staff. The second is ensuring the janitorial staff or company responsible for your children’s schools focuses their attention on trouble spots using the most up to date cleaning techniques.
This may mean securing the services of a professional cleaning service like Tidy Team. At Tidy Team Cleaning Services, the professionals utilize state of the art procedures in cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing, to ensure germs are eradicated from the schools they serve. Tidy Team focuses on the germ trouble spots – bathrooms, cafeterias, and door handles – to minimize the spread. The services of Tidy Team Cleaning keep schools clean, help prevent illnesses, and ultimately make learning more productive and enjoyable with less sick days.