Facility Masters

The 2012 hurricane season starts on June 1.  If you’re in an area that can be impacted by hurricanes, now is the time to make sure your educational organization is prepared for the impact of a major storm and has a plan in place to reduce potential damage and quickly focus on recovery efforts.  Significant hurricanes in the past, most notably Katrina, have destroyed or severely damage educational facilities and forced closures and relocation of students.  It’s important to be prepared for this type of situation, as well as to have a plan in place to protect your technology infrastructure and more.

Here are a few websites on hurricane planning that were shared on the Listserv by Bo Barksdale of Clinton Public School District, MS:

• Mississippi Department of Education Katrina Recovery Information
  • Programs and Vital Information for School Districts
  • Media advisories and press releases
• Tulane University Hurricane Plan
• Education Week Discussions – The Impacts of Hurricane Katrina

You can also download a Hurricane Disaster Preparedness and Recovery Plan that was shared on the Listserv by St. Charles Parish Public Schools, LA.  

Having the right type of glides or tips on the feet of chairs can have a significant impact on the condition of your floors, as well as the need for ongoing floor care and maintenance.  Selecting a glide that adequately protects your floors  can save you money and time by reducing unnecessary wear and damage.

Our peers on the listserv shared their recommendations regarding glides that provide the best floor protection, stay attached to the chairs and are simple to maintain.  They also recommended some specific products and vendors that have worked well in their experience.

Chair Glides / Tips – Recommended Types and Care:

“Plastic caps with the nubs on the bottom work great as long as they are wiped clean regularly. Otherwise they will scratch the floor finish.  We have also found the felt works well, but it must be changed frequently. Check with your vendor and try several different styles in different settings. There is never a one size fits all.”
Andi Lee-Marnicio – Blackhawk Intermediate School, PA

“Check them often and replace bad tips, otherwise they will tear carpets and scratch tile.  We have several rooms of wheeled chairs that also nest for storage. They are made by Steel Case and have been very durable.”
John Burns – ENMU-Ruidoso, NM

“I’ve found nothing works better than felt on waxed VCT, but change them every year as they slowly collect sand and stuff that scratches off your wax.”
Tim Gordon

“Felt works better than hard plastic on finished floors, but the old metal guides work the best.  My reasoning is the dirt and sand particles get embedded in the plastic but not in the metal.”
Dave Ayers – Freemont County School District One, WY

Vendor and Product Recommendations:

“We have found, after several attempts, that the vinyl slip over with felt bottom works great for our chairs.  Takes a little to get used to attaching, but they don’t come off.  We get ours through Shiffler: www.shifflerequip.com.”
Elaine MacLachlan – Skaneateles Central School District, NY

“Decker Equipment has a wide variety of glides for foot, as well as rail chairs, with reasonable pricing.”
Bob Frenette – Avon Old Farms School, CT

“We use these on our chairs in rooms with vinyl flooring: http://www.reallygoodstuff.com/search.do?query=chair+covers”
David Coffman – Keys School, CA

“Our biggest problem with glides was losing them. The low, white, nylon glides seem to get kicked off pretty quickly. We use the ‘slip over’ type that comes up over the metal glide. They’re a fight to put on, but don’t come off. Then we make sure to take a brush to them every summer and during one of the winter breaks to keep the debris out of the felt or carpet bottoms. Shiffler has a nice line of glides, and their prices are not bad.”
Vinny Sicignano – Skaneateles CSD, NY

View the full listserv thread here.

Proper roof maintenance is crucial to safeguarding your organization’s significant capital investment in its facilities, providing a safe indoor air environment, sustaining energy efficiency and protecting the contents of your buildings.  Conducting regular maintenance, inspections and preventive maintenance is essential to getting the maximum performance and life from a roof.

In preparation for our upcoming webcast on Roof Maintenance: Best Practices to Maximize Life and Savings, your peers on the Facility Masters Listserv shared their best practices for roof maintenance:

“Maintain an aggressive PM plan of facility staff inspections on a monthly basis and inspections by roofing professionals on an annual basis. Establish a good escrow account/ budget line for roof PM and preventing interior damage/big repairs/early roof replacement due to negligence.”
Rich Hansen – Middle Bucks Institute of Technology, PA

“A proactive roof maintenance program should include:

1. Bi-annual inspection
2. Roof surveys every 3 years, including condition analysis with replacement planning out 10 years
3. Test cutting as needed
4. In-house IR study every 2 years or with repetitive leaks
5. Leak tracking system which notifies repair contractors and warranty contractors automatically
6. Leak reporting (indicating buildings, roof sections and type of leaks) to help prioritize / re-prioritize the replacement project list
7. Develop standardized roofing specs, materials and details with and engineer or roof consultant”

Don Montgomery – Lebanon Community School Corporation, IN

“Complete inspections annually, during times that children are not at school.  Make necessary repairs and complete normal maintenance at that time.”
Roland Jenkins – Trinity Episcopal School, NC

“Inspect and make all needed repairs annually.”
Michael Lally – St. John’s Lutheran Church, School, & CDC, WI

“Have roofs inspected annually by an outside contractor.”
Robert Maxwell – Rye YMCA, NY

To subscribe to the listserv, simply send a blank email message to join-facilitymasters@talk.netatlantic.com.

The Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council is now accepting applications to attend this summer’s School Sustainability Leaders Summit from June 27-29. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until April 30, 2012.

 The Summit will be held at USGBC offices in DC and is designed for school district or school system staff who are the point-people for environmental sustainability within their organization. It is intentionally small in scale–around fifty attendees–allowing for very targeted learning and the opportunity to join and connect with a network of supportive professionals.

Last year’s event was a smashing success. Attendees from across the country shared stories, best practices, skill development, and more. You can find out more by watching the short Green Schools Fellowship video or reading the subsequent story on our blog.

The training is free and open to all types of K12 school districts or systems (public, private and charter). This year, we’re also offering a limited number of $500 travel stipends to help with the cost of getting to DC and staying in the city. The application for the Summit (at the link below) contains a section to apply for one of these stipends.

Fill out the application

Please email me with any questions or concerns. We look forward to seeing you with us this summer!

Take care,

Anisa

p.s. Keep up with all of our news and resources! If you don’t yet get our quarterly newsletter, you can sign up here to start receiving it.

Anisa Baldwin Metzger,  LEED AP BD+C  O+M

School District Sustainability

Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council

2101 L Street NW, Suite 500 | Washington DC | 20037

Cell: 202.701.0681

www.centerforgreenschools.org

Courtesy of Dennis Randolph – NSPMA Executive Director

This year be thankful if you have a sand based or well drained sports field. The record setting wet March has certainly slowed down the grass plant root system development both from the super–saturated and cold soil temperature standpoints. Knowing this it would be wise to make a special effort to core aerate as soon as the conditions will allow. Introducing air into the root system will help warm the soil and thus jump start the grass plant. In fact this spring you may wish to consider an even deeper aeration to loosen the compacted layer between 4-7”. This would promote not only deeper root development but more water holding capacity of the soil – thus giving you a longer playing season into the fall.
Often times when a field finally dries out after these wet conditions the playing surface will become very hard. The aeration also will assist in the safety of the field countering the hard playing surface condition

Security in our educational organizations is a top of mind concern, especially with recent, unfortunate incidences of violence and fatalities making headlines.  While not all institutions can afford expensive security technology, there are some low-cost, no-cost solutions you can put in place to improve security and better protect students, teachers and staff.

The following measures were recommended by Paul Timm of RETA Security, Inc.:

• Interior doors must have the capability of being locked. As strange as it sounds, we still find schools that do not have locks.  Get ‘em now!
• Windows in and around interior doors must be hardened to prevent forced entry. Many older schools still utilize wire mesh in windows. It may not be great from a safety standpoint (a student who breaks the window could be harmed), but it IS very effective from a security standpoint. For those that were not permitted to use wire mesh and opted for tempered glass, you have an enormous risk of forced access to the room. Tempered glass can/should be replaced with laminated glass or reinforced with plastic laminate.
• Teachers and staff must carry the room key at all times (preferably on a lanyard), unless the lock is activated with a thumb turn (which presents some risks that a keyed cylinder does not).
• Students and staff that are NOT in a classroom or office should know where the closest “safe haven” (a room with a door that locks) is as indicated on a posted evacuation map.
• Lockdown drills should be conducted and evaluated at least annually.
• Communication systems should provide comprehensive notification, inside the building AND outside the building.
• Work with local responders to determine procedures (i.e. use of red/green cards).

Thanks to Paul for sharing these valuable security best practices.

In addition, there are several Security and Safety documents, reports, policies and guidelines available for free download in the Security and Safety Resources area of the Facility Masters site.

The second element is to identify the resources that you can utilize in order to prepare the most thorough analysis. Some of the resources to consider are:

Staff – your existing staff should be consulted for their ideas and insights.
NCEF – The National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities is another excellent resource
Planning Guide for Maintaining School Facilities – This guide is a great resource that identifies the best practices and processes in maintaining school facilities and can be found at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003347.pdf
Colleagues
The various ASBO affiliates have vast amounts of information especially Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin
And certainly the Internet for all the wealth of information that is available on all topics

• How safe is it to apply boric acid in kitchen for cockroach problem?
  • If you have a cockroach problem applying boric acid is fine, but it should not be your only treatment.  Cockroaches are known to live in tight dark spaces – you pest control company should be using bait stations, gel baits and boric acid in mop water as possible options.  However, repeated use of boric acid in the kitchen area will help to create resistance from the cockroaches in a few short months. 

http://www.extension.org/pages/22045/school-ipm-action-plan-for-german-cockroaches

• What office at the state level is responsible for IPM guidance and are regulations?
  • What state are you in?  In general most states have Dept of Agriculture who oversees all types of pesticide applications.  However in some states the Dept of Education can also have some say in an IPM program as well.

• We use plastic bait boxes with poisonous bait. Are you saying these should not be used? We are told they do not instantly kill the mice. They will eat bait and die later
  • Bait stations can be used, but you must remember mice and rats eat the bait or translocate the bait (move it) and will die later.  The biggest myth is they will go outside to seek water – NO – once rats and mice are in your building, they are in the building.