3 TIPS TO AVOID THE SPREAD OF INFLUENZA IN YOUR SCHOOL

1. Urge Parents to Keep Students at Home When Ill Throughout history, teachers have urged children and parents to strive for perfect attendance during the school year. Many schools even hand out perfect attendance awards at the end of the year. Encouraging children to attend school every day is a good idea, in theory, to ensure children do not miss important school lessons that may lead to them having to play catch up later when they do return to the classroom. However, awarding children for perfect school attendance has become controversial due to the fact that these awards unintentionally encourage children to attend school when ill. Unfortunately, when just one child with influenza attends school due to a desire to earn this award, this child can infect many others and begin an entire flu epidemic in your school.

2. Encourage Good Hand Hygiene

The influenza virus is spread when droplets of infected body fluids are released when sneezing or coughing spread from person to person. While some of these droplets released into the air from a student infected with influenza may directly pass into another student's nose or mouth, the influenza virus is more often spread in more indirect ways. The indirect spread of the flu virus often occurs when a child coughs or sneezes into a hand, touches a surface with that hand, and another student then touches that surface.

3. Sanitize All Classroom Surfaces Properly When Each School Day Ends

While your staff members may be eager to perform other tasks or go home at the end of a long school day, encourage them to sanitize all hard surfaces in their classrooms at the end of each school day. The flu virus can survive on hard surfaces for 24 hours or longer. Soft surfaces do not need to be sanitized since the flu virus typically survives on these surfaces for only a few minutes. An easy, affordable sanitizing solution that kills the flu virus can be made by combining just 1/2-cup of bleach mixed with one gallon of hot water. Have your staff wipe all classroom desks, tables, chairs, and door handles with this solution at the end of each school day to kill any flu virus particles that may be lingering on them.

SHOULD I USE A PROFESSIONAL CLEANING SERVICE?

All of our technicians are experienced in commercial cleaning and have been trained in electrostatic disinfection. We understand that your facility cannot afford to miss a day of business due to an illness outbreak, and we can help you prevent that from happening. We keep your customers and employees safe by using only EPA registered chemicals and following the correct procedures for effectively using these disinfectants. We want to help you create an environment safe from illness and safe for employees, pets, and children.