Goal: Protect the Health and Safety of One Million Kids
Los Angeles, CA – In honor of the Green Apple Day of Service sponsored by the US Green Building Council’s Center for Green Schools; The Ashkin Group; ISSA, the worldwide cleaning association; and the Healthy Schools Campaign have launched an effort to catalog Custodial Training Programs.
The project is designed to draw attention to the importance of cleaning and the need for training the people who keep our schools and universities healthy and safe, especially during a period when many are dealing with budget cutbacks. The ultimate goals are to help improve student performance, as well as protect the health and safety of students, staff, and custodial workers while reducing impacts on the environment.
Additionally, according to Rachel Gutter, director of the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, “it emphasizes one of the key goals of the entire Green Apple Day of Service program and that is sending a message to the world that where we learn matters.”
All of these goals are strongly supported by ISSA, the Healthy Schools Campaign, and the Ashkin Group.
“Parents, teachers and education leaders know that healthy students are more likely to succeed. Green cleaning is about keeping our kids safe, healthy and ready to learn – and it all starts with a well-trained custodial staff”, said Mark Bishop, VP of Policy at Healthy Schools Campaign. “Green cleaning is something that every school can and should embrace, and there is no more important place to begin with our school custodians.”
According to Stephen Ashkin, president of The Ashkin Group and long recognized as “the father of Green Cleaning,” as of late August, training of nearly 800 school custodians serving nearly 311,000 students has been cataloged as part of the Green Apple Day of Service,” adds Ashkin. “This is a great start but we can’t stop here. We are calling on the cleaning industry and school administrators to bring that number up so we can protect the health of one million kids.”
“Custodial training is critical to providing high-performance cleaning and [for] the protection of health and well-being of students and custodians,” says Bill Balek, ISSA director of legislative and environmental services. “ISSA is proud of the cleaning industry’s long-time commitment to education and [the] training of the cleaning service provider. We know the more custodial workers we can train, the more children we can help, [advancing] our ‘one million kids’ goal.”
To register a custodial training program go to http://www.greenapple.org/greencleaning.
