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IPM
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SOUTH KITSAP
SCHOOL DISTRICT |
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How does a school system get selected to serve as a pest management role model for others in the state? It helps to have an administration and staff that are committed to achieving effective, least-toxic pest control. That quality has made South Kitsap School District a participant in the model schools IPM program started by Washington State University. The IPM, or Integrated Pest Management, program at South Kitsap schools has its beginnings with Jim Beveridge, former grounds department manager. Beveridge took an interest in IPM after hearing about it at meetings of the Washington Association of Maintenance and Operations Administrators in the mid-1990s. Mike Riley, the current grounds and maintenance department manager for the school district, has been the sparkplug for getting the program off the ground over the last few years and now acts as the IPM coordinator dealing with day-to-day implementation of the program. “Our priority has always been to keep pesticides away from kids,” explains Riley. Beveridge is now the district’s safety manager, working closely with Riley and others to maintain safe and healthy schools, inside and out. Don Fike is the lead groundskeeper in a program which uses irrigation and a special turf-aerating machine to keep athletic fields healthy and resistant to weeds and other pests. Eden Advanced Pest Technologies has provided structural pest control services for the district over the past six years, dealing mostly with occasional mouse, carpenter ant and termite problems. Pest management for school grounds, primarily weeds and stinging insects, is managed in-house and outsourced only when needed. Eden has earned an excellent reputation for its use of IPM techniques to control pests. Some facilities, such as the central kitchen, are on a schedule of regular inspection and monitoring with sticky traps. Pest problems at other facilities are evaluated by South Kitsap staff, with Eden called in to a school when needed. “Head custodians will call me if there is an urgent problem,” says Riley. “If the problem isn’t urgent, they’ll enter the request into our electronic work order system. By evaluating pest problems as they come up, we can decide if it’s something we can handle ourselves or if funds need to be spent to bring Eden in.” Cost isn’t the only factor working to limit pesticide applications at South Kitsap. State law now requires school districts to contact parents who want to be notified prior to the application of a pesticide. South Kitsap goes above and beyond the requirement, notifying all parents and staff.
“We feel that the risk involved in missing someone who wanted to be notified isn’t worth it – so we notify everyone,” says Tom O’Brien, facilities director.
“It’s burdensome to let everyone know, so we consider every potential pesticide application carefully and look for alternatives.” Another safety step was to make a “clean sweep” of school facilities for unauthorized pesticides several years ago. The cleanout netted a haul that included sprays for head lice. “Not everyone was happy with losing their pesticides,” says Riley, “but we’ve continued to get good control of pests with other measures. One of the things we’ve done is to develop a higher tolerance for weeds in less visible areas.” The model schools program has delivered IPM experts from Washington State University and the Washington State Department of Agriculture to South Kitsap to work with the district to refine its program and in the process, learn what works best so that IPM can be exported to other school districts throughout the state. One of the lessons learned in the early going was that the WSDA’s database for tracking pesticide applications had room for improvement to make the program more useful to schools. The database project was initiated by Dan Suomi, a WSDA pest control specialist. Deborah Anderson, secretary to director O’Brien, worked closely with Suomi to program improvements into the database. According to Anderson, “The database is great for keeping track of what we do when a pest problem is reported. We can note if a pesticide was applied, or if a non-chemical method solved the problem.” That capability will help South Kitsap accurately measure how their IPM program is paying off in reducing the reliance on pesticides. If motivation and commitment provide any gauge, we can expect to see lots of progress at South Kitsap in the coming years. The IPM program serves South Kitsap’s 10,933 students and 1,100 staff. The system includes 10 elementary schools, three junior highs and one high school, one alternative high school and five support buildings.
The oldest building in the system dates back to 1942. |
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