Even as this post is being written, school administrators and teachers alike are counting down the days until summer break begins. Maintenance crews are also keeping an eye on the calendar, but for a different reason. They know that summer is the time for deep cleaning. They also know that the summer weeks will fly by once cleaning begins in earnest.
Soon the once busy halls of America’s private schools will be empty. Classrooms will echo with silence. Meanwhile, maintenance crews will be hard at work deep cleaning restrooms, classrooms, student lockers, cafeterias, and gymnasiums.
Our best advice is to bring in a commercial cleaning service to manage summer deep cleaning. But in the absence of professional services, there are some basic things maintenance crews can do to guarantee efficient and effective cleaning over the short summer months.
1. Go Into It With a Plan
Successfully completing any large-scale cleaning project starts with planning. During the summer months, school cleaning equates to deep cleaning. Cleaners have but a few short weeks to address all the ground in dirt and grime that has been allowed to accumulate over the last nine months.
Putting together a workable plan in the final weeks leading up to summer break can make an enormous difference. On the other hand, attacking summer deep cleaning haphazardly virtually guarantees that every task will not get completed.
2. Address Repair Work First
It is best to take care of all repair work before deep cleaning begins. That way, there is little to no risk of re-contaminating spaces that have already been cleaned. If scheduling forces crews to simultaneously work on repairs and cleaning, try to keep cleaning as far away from repair work as possible. If something on one side of the building needs repair, send cleaners to the other side.
3. Schedule Each Task
Speaking of schedules, you might find that keeping up with time constraints is easier if each task is scheduled for a particular day or set of days. Establishing a schedule with tight deadlines reduces the temptation to take it easy early on only to push a lot harder at the end of the summer.
When possible, schedule the hardest tasks first. You want to give the cleaning crew enough time in case more complicated tasks get delayed. As an added bonus, deep cleaning gets easier the closer your crew gets to the end. That could be the motivation they need to get everything done on time.
4. Work from Top to Bottom
One of the more fundamental concepts of commercial cleaning certainly applies to cleaning private schools during the summer: working from top to bottom. This applies in two ways:
- Starting with upper floors and moving to the floors underneath.
- Starting in the highest areas of a given space and working down toward lower areas.
Working from top to bottom prevents lower surfaces from being re-contaminated while higher surfaces are being cleaned. It also dictates that floors are the last thing to be addressed. Floors can be very difficult to deep clean, especially in a high traffic facility like a private school. So this is the one exception to the principle of doing the hardest tasks first.
Summer will be here before we know it. And when it arrives, cleaning crews across the country will be hitting private schools with full force. Summer is deep cleaning time for schools. Commercial cleaning providers like All Pro Cleaning Systems are standing by to do the job. If you would like more information about our services, don’t hesitate to contact us.
