Tag Archives: healthy schools

Statewide pest management trainings for school coordinators start in March

New laws in effect for school districts, coordinators to be aware of The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service has announced the schedule of integrated pest management, IPM, trainings for school district coordinators for 2024. In order to help school districts adhere to new rules passed by the Texas Department of Agriculture, TDA, that went into effect in January, AgriLife Extension will offer in-depth two-day regional trainings and at least one  six-hour training. Janet Hurley, AgriLife Extension integrated pest management specialist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center… Read More →

From pests to pollutants, keeping schools healthy and clean is no simple task

Parents send their children to school to learn, and they don’t want to worry about whether the air is clean, whether there are insect problems or whether the school’s cleaning supplies could cause an asthma attack. But a research collaborative, of which I’m a member, has found that schools might not be ready to protect students from environmental contaminants. I’m an extension specialist focused on pest management. I’m working with a cross-disciplinary team to improve compliance with environmental health standards, and we’ve found that schools across the nation need updates in order to meet… Read More →

SPN: Welcome Back to Campus: let’s not bring in unwanted guests

Where has the year gone? Our campuses are bracing for full student and staff occupation, but are you ready for the pest invasion as well?? Did you know that schools have four more times occupants than office buildings for the same amount of floor space? (Schools for Health.org) And yet we don’t always think about how to manage these areas to keep pests like ants, cockroaches, bed bugs, ticks, fleas, mice, rats, and a whole lot more out of our buildings. In this newsletter are some tips everyone… Read More →

Daycare & School Poison Safety

While the end of summer is an exciting time for kids, parents, and educators, it is also a time for an increased risk of illness or injury as students head back to school. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than half of students (ages 5-17) miss 1-5 school days each year due to illness or injury. Studies show that students with more absences have lower scores on national standardized tests. In short, attendance is a key indicator of student academic achievement. To reduce illness, schools… Read More →

Healthy Homes & Schools

The Healthy Homes and Schools program is designed to educate custodians, food service workers, school nurses, child care directors, nursing home managers and community health workers about the importance of connecting pest problems and the built environment when it comes to asthma, food borne illnesses and other problems. The Built Environment is defined as human-modified places such as homes, schools, workplaces, parks, industrial areas, farms, roads, and highways which our most important habitat, since 80% of North Americans live in towns and cities and spend 90% of their… Read More →

School Pest News, Volume 13, Issue 7, July 2014

Forming a battlefront against pests in schools: the pest management team By Rosemary Hallberg, Southern IPM Center and Janet Hurley, TX A&M AgriLife Extension Think of a school IPM program as a battle with a powerful army. The more people you have on your side, the more likely you are to have victory. Insects and small rodents may be smaller than us, but they adapt quickly and enter and exit through places that are normally ignored by people, such as tiny cracks under a door or a small… Read More →