Day-to-day school cleaning can feel like an uphill battle. Daily wear and tear accounts for the majority of maintenance and repair a floor needs, and between staff, parents, and an active student body, the walkways of a school see a lot of it.
Many custodial teams repair and resurface floors only a few times a year, giving their school floors a deep cleaning to undo the cumulative damage of several semesters in one fell swoop. But good floor care is as much about the daily maintenance as it is about fixing big problems.
Daily floor care is essential to the safe, hygienic operation of the entire school. It removes dust and allergens that can cause health concerns for occupants, reduces the likelihood of accidents in the halls – and it makes the school look good, which improves reputation and satisfaction. With that in mind, we’d like to offer some of our favorite tips and best practices for keeping school floors clean every day.
Make a floor cleaning plan – and stick to it.
Consistency is key to a clean school floor. Some surfaces will need more attention than others (based on factors like age, traffic, and purpose), but setting a schedule and expectation of cleanliness is vital to keeping floors in good shape.
Most school custodial departments outline cleaning instructions in their standard operating procedures (SOP). In addition to maintenance, make sure your school’s SOP includes best practices around frequency and depth of cleaning, different kinds of cleaning equipment, when and how equipment should be used, material handling procedures, and considerations for sensitive surfaces or areas that need special attention.
Keep Trash Cans and Recycling Bins in Handy Places
Receptacles are an obvious way to decrease litter and messes, but it’s important that they be strategically placed. Consider concentrating trash and recycling bins in the following places at your school:
- High-traffic areas
- Near the cafeteria
- On both sides of doorways
- Near the bus stop
- By the restrooms
- High-traffic areas
- Near the cafeteria
- On both sides of doorways
- Near the bus stop
- By the restrooms
- At the front entrance
Give them a place to put their trash that’s NOT the floor for an easy cleaning win.
Use School Cleaning Robots to Save Time
Robotic floor scrubbers (technically known as autonomous mobile robots or AMRs) are a core part of today’s school floor cleaning plans. With staffing challenges and hygiene standards in flux, facility managers need all the help they can get to stay on schedule and on spec – and floor cleaning robots for schools are designed to help custodians use their time more efficiently without replacing human decision-making.
Make Sure You’re Using the Right Cleaning Equipment in the Right Places
Your school probably has many different kinds of flooring with many different purposes: non-skid floors, high-performance floors, tile classroom floors, cement flooring, carpeted flooring. Different flooring types respond differently to cleaning methods, including the chemicals and applicators (like squeegees, brushes, and sprays), and each can require different floor cleaning equipment to keep it in its best shape.
Here’s a handy guide to selecting the right type(s) of floor cleaning equipment for your school environments.
Get Every Inch Quicker with Microscrubbers
From the bathroom to the lab to the cafeteria, schools are full of hard-to-reach spaces, like around desks, in kitchen crannies, under tables, and between cabinets. Even if they’re not as open or visible as the hallways and walkways, these tiny spaces go a long way toward making a space usable, hygienic, and attractive, so it’s important to keep them free of debris and daily buildup.
Mop-and-bucket cleaning used to be the most efficient way – often the only way – to get those hard-to-reach spaces clean on a daily basis. But modern small-profile floor scrubbers from Tennant Company can reach further into narrow spaces, packing industrial scrubbing power into cleaning paths as narrow as 15 inches. What’s more, these ‘microscrubbers’ let you do more with less staff, protect flooring surfaces, and they don’t leave as much of a slippery trail as mops can, meaning it’s safe to walk on sooner after cleaning.
Maintain Your Floor Cleaning Equipment Regularly
Floor cleaning equipment is a significant investment for any school. Schools need that equipment to hold up to years of daily use. The good news is that with proper care and maintenance, well-designed cleaning machines will last as long as you need to see a healthy ROI. Here are the main areas to check regularly to make sure your floor cleaning equipment is performing its best, day-in and day-out.
- Check and charge batteries often
- Clear drains of any clogs
- Check hoses for leaks and stoppages
- Clean the debris tray regularly (don’t let it get overfull)
- Cycle solution and recovery tanks (drain and rinse)
- Clean squeegees and brushes/pads thoroughly
Regular professional maintenance is another sound investment and a great way to head off critical equipment issues before they have a chance to stop your cleaning crew in their tracks. Learn about floor cleaning equipment service plans from Tennant Company by clicking this link.
With all kinds of people using them all day long for months at a time, school floors can be one of the most challenging surfaces to keep clean on a day-to-day basis. But with the right planning, equipment, and forethought, even the most-walked paths can earn top marks in cleanliness, hygiene, and presentation.
To learn more about how robotic cleaning equipment can help your educational institution become cleaner download our education robotics eBook.
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