As districts increasingly adopt "school choice" models and the competition to retain faculty and staff increases, nearly every school is looking for smart ways to create a great first impression and lasting confidence in their learning environment. More and more schools are focusing on enhanced floor cleaning as a practical and powerful way to lay the foundation for a great first impression and a great learning environment.
If your school or district is looking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its floor care program, here are seven key questions you should consider when getting started:
1. How many schools will your floor cleaning program cover?
The first thing to consider when choosing a floor cleaning machine is the scope of your floor cleaning needs. This is more than the number of students your school or district serves. You should also consider how many schools you will cover and whether they are operated as networked facilities that can share equipment. This will help determine the number of floor cleaning machines you need.
2. What type of flooring does your school building use?
Flooring is often purpose-built – especially in educational facilities. Carpeting in an elementary school classroom, wooden floors in a gymnasium, and polished concrete entryways all have different cleaning and maintenance needs. Pivot Machinery offers a range of solutions to clean every surface in schools and aims to provide multi-surface cleaning wherever possible. Sweepers and vacuums are an important part of a school district's floor cleaning arsenal, while mechanical mops and automatic scrubbers are responsible for removing dirt from the floor (and reducing the use of cleaning chemicals).
3. Which is right for your school: a push-behind, a ride-on, or a robotic floor cleaning machine?
This question is closely related to the first question about the number and size of school buildings in your area. Smaller spaces can often be cleaned cost-effectively with a walk-behind floor cleaning machine. Larger spaces can be cleaned more efficiently with a ride-on floor cleaning machine, significantly reducing the time required to complete larger tasks. For maximum efficiency, fully automatic robotic floor cleaning machines require no human intervention.
4. How can you reduce the use of chemicals when cleaning floors in schools?
The use of chemicals when cleaning school facilities is a hot topic, especially with rising rates of asthma and other allergies among students, staff and teachers. Even more worrying is that one-third of cleaning products contain a chemical known to be harmful to human health.
Choosing the right floor cleaning machine can help you significantly reduce or even eliminate the use of floor cleaning chemicals.
5. Could staffing issues hinder the success of facility cleaning?
An unprecedented cleaning labor shortage is plaguing every industry, but schools are unique in that they can't just adjust their hours to make do. Concerns about noise levels and student traffic during school hours mean most of the deep cleaning needs to be done after hours, but the time between the bell ringing and staff swarming in early the next morning is limited.
The solution is to work smarter, not harder. Today's high-performance floor cleaning machines can significantly reduce the time it takes to complete cleaning tasks and provide you with the confidence of efficient floor cleaning in one go.
6. What are the expectations of administration, staff, parents, and students regarding cleaning?
The importance of school cleanliness remains more important than ever. Students, parents, staff and faculty are all more aware and sensitive to school cleaning issues. School administrators are acutely aware of how perceptions of cleanliness impact key school outcomes-from attracting students in districts with school choice models, to attracting and retaining staff, to mitigating the negative impact of student and staff absences due to illness. However, these higher expectations do not automatically lead to a larger cleaning budget.
Schools need to find smart new tools and technologies – from basic mechanical mops to smart, autonomous robotic scrubbers – to help them achieve higher cleaning standards consistently and cost-effectively.
Now that you have the information, take the next steps to improve your school's floor cleaning strategy. Learn more about Pivot Machinery's range of floor scrubbers.