Back to School and Beyond: The Ultimate Guide to a Safe and Clean Campus!

Back to School and Beyond: The Ultimate Guide to a Safe and Clean Campus!

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As the back-to-school season arrives, the importance of preparing and maintaining a clean and safe school environment cannot be overstated. At Shine Facility Services, we recognize the crucial role that cleanliness plays in fostering a healthy, productive, and positive learning atmosphere. Here’s why it’s essential to prepare schools meticulously for the new academic year and maintain high cleaning standards throughout.

1. Promoting Health and Wellness

Ensuring a clean school environment helps reduce the spread of germs and illnesses, including colds, flu, and other contagious diseases. Thorough cleaning and sanitizing practices are vital to keep students and staff healthy, minimizing absenteeism and promoting overall wellness. This is especially critical in preventing outbreaks of common school-time illnesses and ensuring a continuous, uninterrupted learning experience.

2. Enhancing Learning and Concentration

A clutter-free, clean classroom environment significantly impacts students’ ability to focus and learn. Dust, dirt, and disorganization can be distracting and negatively affect concentration. Conversely, a well-maintained and orderly space creates a positive atmosphere that supports academic success, allowing students to thrive.

3. Ensuring Safety

Safety is a paramount concern in any school setting. Regular cleaning and maintenance help prevent hazards such as slippery floors, cluttered hallways, and malfunctioning facilities. By proactively addressing these issues, schools can minimize the risk of accidents and injuries, ensuring a safe environment for everyone.

4. Instilling Good Hygiene Habits

Schools are pivotal in teaching students important life skills, including personal hygiene and cleanliness. By maintaining a clean environment, schools set a positive example, encouraging students to adopt good hygiene practices. These habits, learned early, can extend beyond the classroom and contribute to lifelong health and wellness.

5. Boosting Morale and Motivation

A clean and pleasant school environment boosts morale and motivation for both students and staff. When the surroundings are inviting and well-maintained, students feel more comfortable and eager to learn, and teachers are more motivated to provide quality instruction. This positive atmosphere can significantly enhance the overall educational experience.

Steps for Preparing a Clean and Safe School

1. Deep Cleaning and Sanitizing

Before the school year begins, a comprehensive deep cleaning and sanitizing of the entire school is essential. This includes classrooms, restrooms, cafeterias, gymnasiums, and common areas. Special attention should be given to high-touch surfaces such as door handles, desks, and computers to eliminate germs and bacteria.

2. Regular Maintenance and Inspections

Ongoing maintenance is crucial to keep the school in top condition throughout the year. Regular inspections can help identify and resolve potential hazards before they become problems. Routine cleaning, restocking supplies, and addressing maintenance issues promptly ensure that the school remains clean and safe.

3. Green Cleaning Solutions

Using environmentally friendly cleaning products ensures the safety and health of students and staff while minimizing the environmental impact. Green cleaning solutions are effective in maintaining cleanliness without exposing individuals to harmful chemicals.

4. Customized Cleaning Schedules

Every school has unique needs and schedules. Shine Facility Services offers customized cleaning plans tailored to the specific requirements of each school. Whether it’s daily cleaning, weekly deep cleaning, or special event cleaning, we can create a schedule that fits seamlessly into the school’s routine.

Maintaining Cleaning Standards Throughout the School Year

1. Routine Cleaning

Implementing a consistent routine cleaning schedule is crucial. Daily cleaning of classrooms, restrooms, and common areas helps maintain a high level of cleanliness and hygiene. Regular vacuuming, mopping, dusting, and sanitizing of high-touch surfaces should be part of the daily regimen.

2. Periodic Deep Cleaning

In addition to daily cleaning, periodic deep cleaning is necessary to address areas that require more intensive care. This includes thorough cleaning of carpets, windows, and ventilation systems to ensure that the entire school environment remains fresh and clean.

3. Involving the School Community

Maintaining a clean school environment is a collective effort. Encouraging students, teachers, and staff to take responsibility for their spaces can make a significant difference. Simple practices such as picking up trash, wiping down desks, and keeping personal areas tidy contribute to the overall cleanliness of the school.

4. Monitoring and Evaluation

Regular monitoring and evaluation of cleaning practices help ensure that standards are being met. Conducting periodic assessments and gathering feedback from the school community can identify areas for improvement and ensure that cleaning protocols are effective.

Partnering with Shine Facility Services

At Shine Facility Services, we are committed to helping schools prepare and maintain a clean, safe, and welcoming environment throughout the academic year. Our team of experienced professionals provides top-notch cleaning and facility management services tailored to the unique needs of each school.

By partnering with us, schools can ensure that their environment is conducive to learning and well-being. Let’s work together to create and maintain a healthy, safe, and positive school environment for the entire school year. Contact Shine Facility Services today to learn more about our services and how we can assist your school in achieving its goals.

A clean and safe school environment is the foundation for a successful academic year. With Shine Facility Services by your side, you can be confident that your school is well-prepared and maintained to provide an enriching and productive educational experience.

Strip, Wax, and Start the New Year Right How Proper Floor Care Can Save Money

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The New Year is a time for new beginnings. For many organizations, especially hospitals and life science laboratories, this fresh start begins with the floor, specifically stripping and waxing it to keep it safe, clean, healthy, and compliant. Doing the job right can also reduce labor and product costs and extend the life of floors. Yet, while many people and even commercial cleaning services companies talk about the need to strip and wax floors, not all know what it entails or how to ensure the job is done right.

“Many times people think stripping the floor means removing the top layer of wax or even just cleaning it before reapplying wax,” says Luis Ramirez, CEO and founder of Shine Facility Services, San Francisco, CA. “This is called a scrub and recoat, which should be performed for floors with average foot traffic every six months to a year. A full strip and wax requires removing all the layers of wax. If this is done correctly, and regular floor maintenance has been followed, including scrubbing and recoating in the suggested time frame, then full-scale stripping and waxing only need to be done every two to three years.”

By “all the layers,” Ramirez refers to the three to five coats of wax that should have been applied the last time the floor was completely stripped and waxed. If this deep strip isn’t done, the final finish will suffer.

“If you don’t perform a deep strip and only clean or remove the top layer of wax and apply more wax to the surface each time, you will see different shades in the finish. It won’t look as pristine, and it won’t last. The top coat will evaporate and erode, leaving imperfections in the finish. It will also be easier for scratches and scuff marks to mar the surface, ruining the overall look much quicker.”

 

Facts and Misconceptions

“People often wonder why certain floors need to be waxed,” says Ramirez. “It is because most surfaces, including vinyl composite tile (VCT), have little-to-no natural slip resistance. The slip resistance comes from the floor wax, which usually adds a coefficient of friction between 0.5 and 0.76 and makes the floor glossy. Another misconception is that the shinier the floor, the more slippery it is. It’s the opposite. Shinier floors have more slip resistance because the finish has a higher DCOF [Dynamic Coefficient of Friction].”

DCOF is the a measure of slip resistance.  The American National Standards Institute (ANSI)  considers a DCOF rating of greater or equal to 0.42 to be safe for both residential and commercial use.

 

Proper Procedure

Below, Ramirez outlines the steps to strip and wax floors properly.

Deep stripping a floor requires removing all levels of wax down to the surface. Before applying stripper, however, the floor should be thoroughly cleaned to remove all loose dust and debris that can make stripping it more difficult. The stripping solution is applied, and heavy gauge floor pads are used. At Shine, we are extremely environment-conscious and use green-certified products wherever possible. This includes floor pads certified by Green Seal, attesting to their ability to be used with water-based solutions and their durability, which means sending fewer pads to landfills. Some floors, especially those previously not stripped and waxed correctly, may require additional stripping.

Once all the old wax has been removed, the bare floor must be sealed with a sealer to fill in any cracks or crevices, including those between tiles. Without this step, the final finish will be unattractive and, worse, uneven, posing a potential safety hazard.

Once the floor has been sealed, three to five coats of wax with ANSI-approved slip resistance should be applied following all product recommendations. The higher number of coats is recommended to help create a hard, durable finish. It also helps save money in the long run by making the finish last longer between deep stripping and waxing.

Once the wax has hardened, a finisher should be applied for added protection against scrapes, scuffs, and other marks. Finally, the floor should be buffed using an automated buffer to remove any residual dirt and dust and let the floor really shine.

When the stripping and waxing project is complete, proper floor maintenance should be followed, which includes mopping the surface at least once a week and scrubbing to remove and reapply the top layer of wax every six months to one year, depending on floor traffic. If this process is followed, in most cases, removing all layers of wax is only necessary once every three years.

 

Stripping and Waxing Experience You Can Trust

 Are you in the San Francisco Bay area and need a commercial cleaning services provider with expertise in stripping and waxing floors? We invite you to discover the Shine difference! Browse our website or contact us today for more information or a quote.

School Cleaning

Schools need more than custodian

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It’s Time to Lend Your Custodial Department a Helping Hand.  

Why Schools Need More Than Custodians

 

Feel-good stories about private schools honoring a custodian for decades of service are heartwarming, and the accolades are usually well-deserved. However, what some school administrations don’t realize is that more custodians would have impressive tenures if they had the assistance and resources necessary for them to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently.

 

Saying Goodbye

The days of single custodians with a mop and bucket swabbing down a school hallway are as antiquated as the clip art used to portray them. Today, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, health, safety, and infection prevention are top of mind for parents and children. The parents want to know their children are being protected; the children long to stay healthy to participate in sports and other activities and maintain the in-person social lives they had to forgo during the pandemic shutdown.

Also, today, most custodians are assigned tasks beyond cleaning and lack the bandwidth to perform all that needs to be done. This often leads to frustration, low job satisfaction, poor custodial engagement, turnover, and sometimes increasingly poor performance and worker-client communication.

Studies show that students are more creative and productive and teachers teach better in environments that are clean, safe, and healthy. Conversely, unclean learning environments have been linked to poor test scores and chronic absenteeism. Meanwhile, if all else is equal, parents choosing between schools are more likely to send their children to the one they perceive to have a higher level of cleanliness.

 

Adding Staff Is Not the Answer

A mistake some schools make when they realize the need for additional custodial assistance is assuming the answer is hiring more workers. In addition to wages, hiring workers incurs the expenses of insurance, vacation pay, and other benefits paid leaves of absence, and potential union problems should a layoff be needed. The truth is hiring more in-house employees is seldom the answer, not only for the reasons just mentioned but also because extra help is not usually required five days a week but on more of an as-needed basis.

With this in mind, below are a few ways hiring the right building service contractor (BSC) partner to handle special projects can improve your cleaning department’s effectiveness and efficiency, enhance custodial job satisfaction and engagement, and impress stakeholders.

Deep cleaning. When school is on break is a great time to do a deep dive into disinfecting. While many custodial teams are familiar with the day-to-day infection prevention techniques, the right BSC has the in-depth training, including a thorough knowledge of various viruses and bacteria, Including the COVID-19 causing SARS-CoV-2. Having and promoting this added precaution to parents and other stakeholders can go a long way to proving your team is going above and beyond to keep the school clean, safe, and healthy.

Labor-intensive tasks. Holiday and summer breaks are the best time to undertake deep cleaning, such as floor stripping and refinishing, carpet extraction, and other tasks that can be more easily and thoroughly completed when there is little to no traffic. Top BSCs have the expertise and the latest equipment to complete these tasks effectively and efficiently, leaving your custodians more time to concentrate on other vital cleaning and disinfecting responsibilities.

Events. Setting up and tearing down areas for events can be a taxing job, especially for schools that are shorthanded and use areas for various gatherings, such as gymnasiums for proms and graduation or cafeterias for testing or faculty meetings. These areas often must be set up and returned to their intended use quickly. The right BSC partner will have workers help set up and stay through the event to ensure a timely teardown.

Painting. When schools are on break is the best time to freshen up areas that may look worn with a new coat of paint. Yet, not all custodians are professional painters. The best BSCs have a painter on staff who can ensure a quality job in less time.

Emergency assistance. Most custodians are hired to clean and not to repair things like broken water pipes. Having an experienced BSC on call that has tradespeople, like plumbers, on staff or has close relationships with them to ensure faster service can be a saving grace in an emergency.

Sustainability. At most schools, the environment has returned to the spotlight after being temporarily upstaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. An outside contractor knows what has and hasn’t worked for other accounts and can bring fresh ideas and methodology to help your custodial staff develop and maintain an effective sustainability program. They can help with everything from developing a viable green cleaning program to helping implement an effective waste management program. Best, these programs can be created and maintained without taking valuable time away from your custodial staff’s day-to-day responsibilities.

Technology. While school custodians are busy maintaining schools, they don’t all have the time to research the latest labor and cost-saving technologies. Not all school districts have the funds—or the need—to buy the newest equipment, especially for tasks that are performed infrequently. The right BSC will have the latest equipment to produce top-quality results in fewer labor hours.

Balance. Your custodial staff wants what most workers do: a good work-life balance. This is especially true during the holidays and summer breaks, when they, too, want to enjoy time with their families. Dividing up the work between the custodial team and a BSC can create a positive working environment, leaving workers feeling happier, more willing to go the extra mile, and more satisfied with their jobs and employers. And that’s surely a nice reflection on you.