by Brianna Crandall — March 9, 2015—Process Cleaning for Healthy Schools (PC4HS), a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization with a mission of “schools helping schools,” made announcements in the last two weeks that a college in Nevada and a school system in Massachusetts will begin implementing the PC4HS system in March and April, respectively.
Western Nevada College
Western Nevada College (WNC), a community college in northwestern Nevada offering more than 40 academic degrees and certificates, will be implementing the PC4HS program in March. WNC—with three campuses and five education centers serving 6,000 students—celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2011, and stated its goal to both “embrace the past and look forward.”
In harmony with WNC’s mission, PC4HS will help in-house school employees retain the elements of their cleaning system that work while implementing repeatable, standardized cleaning to yield an improved indoor environment conducive to learning, productivity, and human health.
Springfield Public Schools (SPS)
Springfield Public Schools (SPS) in Springfield, Massachusetts is the second largest district in New England, comprising 57 schools; 2,458 teachers; and 4,800 employees, and serving 25,764 students.
PC4HS seeks to achieve results for the large and diverse educational community by standardizing best practices and breaking tasks down into essential repeatable elements to produce manageable, measurable and accountable outcomes—steps that harmonize with SPS’s own standardization goals and budget.
The PC4HS process
The PC4HS process optimizes efficiency, cleanliness, ease of deployment and health factors through a carefully designed and documented system tailored for K-12 school districts and higher education. PC4HS strives to create standardized best practices including:
- Providing specific standardized information schools need to perform cleaning tasks effectively and consistently;
- Identifying “high touch points” that have a likelihood of a high level of contamination;
- Outlining proper steps from start to finish;
- Specifying tools/equipment/products needed to perform tasks;
- Providing recommended time frames for completion;
- Showing how to use technology and quality equipment to improve return on investment; and
- Providing a means of monitoring and measuring cleaning performance, including direct practice observation, ATP (adenosine triphosphate) testing, and other methods.
