by Shane Henson — July 30, 2012—ISSA, the worldwide cleaning industry association, and the Cleaning Industry Research Institute (CIRI) are helping facilities professionals in schools for K-12 students determine “how clean is really clean” through the development of a clean standard for K-12 schools. ISSA and CIRI hope that the Clean Standard: K-12 will ultimately promote clean and healthy indoor environments in educational facilities across the nation to the benefit of children’s learning experiences.
After recently completing three years of extensive field research, both organizations are proud to say that the scientific research team, under the tutelage of scientists Dr. Eugene Cole and Dr. Richard Shaughnessy, have completed collection, analysis and verification of the data necessary to support the Clean Standard: K-12.
The research team focused its three-year project on validating cleaning measurement tools and methods, and then applied these findings to 28 schools in a 70-school district in the southwest United States, they say. Thousands of ATP measurements were taken of bacterial Rodac plates, settled dust, indoor air measures, and building conditions to learn whether practical existing tools and processes were available to consistently measure the level of cleanliness in real-world conditions.
The findings show that ATP can provide a reliable measure of cleanliness, and that reductions in ATP correlated with reductions in bacterial count based on Rodac plate measurement. Moreover, the research has demonstrated that consistent cleaning results can be obtained on a variety of surfaces common in K-12 schools, ISSA and CIRI say.
A 27-member Development Committee comprised of a diverse group of stakeholders from the educational, facilities management and cleaning industries will review the research data and specify quantitative and qualitative levels of cleaning acceptable in the standard, says ISSA. The committee will also specify measurement methods and the management and technical skills necessary to implement the standard. According to ISSA and CIRI, the Clean Standard: K-12 will be performance-oriented (i.e., focused on results) and non-prescriptive (i.e., not favoring any particular cleaning products or processes).
