Keeping your classroom neat and tidy is one thing. Keeping it cleaned and disinfected is another. Unfortunately, since neat and tidy tends to portray an environment free of germs, most schools will prioritize order over disinfectant. This leads to more germs in the classroom that can easily spread from student to student, resulting in more sick days and a reduction in overall engagement.
Don’t let germs take over your school! It’s been shown that the cleaner a classroom and school is, the better a student performs and the more students who go on to graduate. To give your students the best opportunities, you need to keep your school clean. In this article, we’ll go over how to reduce sick days and increase engagement in 2020 and beyond.
Helpful Tips for Keeping a Clean Classroom
First things first: cleanliness starts in the classroom. Even if you have a professional coming in every week, the habits of your students are going to create a mess that can be hard to keep clean on a daily basis. Follow these tips to make sure that you help your students develop healthy habits and keep a clean classroom year-round.
1. Have Designated Cleaning Times
Consider setting aside a few minutes at the end of every class, or school day depending on timetables, for students to clean. Designating a specific cleaning time will let them know that it’s time to do their part and will help foster a sense of accountability in the classroom.
2. Make Sure Everything Has a Place
To expedite the time it takes to get your classroom organized during cleaning sessions, make sure everything has a place. That way, things can be put back quickly and you can focus on cleaning your classroom a little deeper than surface level.
3. Be Straightforward and Detailed in Expectations
Communicate with your students about what you expect on a daily basis. If you want things done a certain way, demonstrate it to them, be detailed, and tell your students that this is what you expect of them regularly.
4. Gives Students Space
Give students their own spaces to take care of. It doesn’t matter if that means a desk, a cubby, or even a simple hook on the wall. Giving your students their own space will help foster a sense of pride when they keep it clean. Find more information on classroom organization here.
5. Make it Fun
Kids hate cleaning. It’s simply not something they view as fun (not that many people do). You need to make classroom-cleaning fun so your students actually enjoy it and look forward to it on a daily basis. When you make cleaning fun in the classroom, more students will go home with these healthy habits.
Getting the Kids Involved
Having your school professional cleaned over this year’s winter break is a great way to start 2020 off on a good foot. To help encourage consistent cleanliness in your school and increase engagement in 2020, there are some additional measures you can take. One thing to do is get the kids involved. This isn’t a professional cleaning replacement—the kids are still at school to learn, not clean—but it’s a great way to take the classroom lessons and apply them to real-world responsibilities while simultaneously teaching accountability. By designating specific classroom jobs, kids will start taking ownership of their actions and feel a sense of pride when they complete their work. They’ll quickly learn that individual accountability matters, especially in a community setting.
Try assigning the following jobs to students in a rotating schedule. Have a different student appointed to each job at the beginning of the week so everyone gets a turn and make sure that each role feels important before and after doing his or her respective job. This tends to work best for elementary aged students rather than high school ages. Assign the following roles:
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Morning Recorder – assign a student to take assessment at the beginning of each day. Keep a notebook so that each day’s morning and afternoon can be recorded and compared before the students go home.
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Table Monitors – have a few students assigned to keep the table or desks clean and organized throughout the day. Keep kid-friendly cleaning products so they can finish their jobs with a quick wipe down.
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Floor Scanners – assign a few students to keep an eye on the cleanliness of the floor. If garbage scraps start to accumulate, have the students grab the appropriate cleaning supplies and take care of it as it happens.
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Garbage Monitor – during snack time or arts and crafts, have one student who gives out nice, encouraging reminders to their classmates about properly disposing their trash. This helps foster accountability.
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Cleaning Motivator – similarly, have a student who is dedicated to motivating others to keep up the overall cleanliness of their classroom.
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Job Checker – this is sort of a managerial job role—someone to monitor that the other jobs are being done consistently. Make sure you rotate so that every student gets a chance in this role.
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Afternoon Recorder – at the end of the day, have a different recorder assess the cleanliness of your classroom. Compare it to your morning records. Ask your students what could have been done better or what still needs to be done.
The Importance of Professional Cleaning
While involving your students in the every day cleanliness of your school is a great way to boost engagement, it’s not a replacement for professional cleaning services. Professional cleaning services will help you reduce the spread of germs, lower absence rates, enhance the overall learning by boosting productivity, and create a healthy environment for teachers, faculty, and students alike. Professional cleaning services, like Bee Line Support, offer a level of disinfectant that in-house cleaning products don’t achieve. At Bee Line, our cleaning standards were designed with schools in mind, which is why we use the highest infectious control standards in the industry. The PS 4/7 Misting System works to safely and effectively spray high-touch surfaces to fully disinfect anything, anywhere. Some benefits of the PS 4/7 Misting System include increased personnel attendance, sanitization of hard-to-reach areas, CRI approved carpet sanitation, odor elimination, no chemical smells left behind, and it’s safe to use on any surface. Plus, the PS 4/7 Misting System kills fungal spores for up to 7 months and works hard to disinfect high traffic touch points that otherwise go missed.
Bee Line Support aims to provide the best quality cleaning services to every facility we clean. That’s why all of the buildings we clean become eligible for GREENGUARD® Certification—a certification that signifies the world’s most rigorous standards of indoor air quality. Our quality control procedures ensure that nothing gets missed during your school’s comprehensive cleaning.
In 2020, your students and staff can breathe easy with Bee Line. Our green cleaning program keeps classrooms in the best condition while protecting students from dangerous chemicals. We use state of the art HEPA filter vacuums, Green Seal-certified disinfectants, and microfiber towels to eliminate bacteria and microbes completely. Bee Line Support also offers upholstery cleaning services, commercial carpet cleaning services, and vacuuming, garbage removal, and comprehensive janitorial services. Our employees are rigorously trained throughout their careers at Bee Line and always go above and beyond expectations. Learn more about Bee Line’s corporate cleaning procedures download our brochure.
Call Bee Line Support at 312-BEE-LINE or message us today to get started on the path to cleanliness!
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