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Orange County school district teaches custodians new cleaning methods

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — While students enjoy summer break, custodians at one school district will continue learning.

Orange County Public Schools’ custodians are learning how best to clean school buildings to prevent children from getting sick.

The school district’s 1,100 custodians will gather at Oak Ridge High School Monday for a daylong training session to learn new cleaning techniques.

“Every other week, actually, one of my kids are sick,” parent Amanda Jackson said. “And they are in such close quarters, and they are always touching each other.”

Custodians will relearn how to clean classrooms, restrooms and hallways.

The district said the retraining is aimed at preventing cross-contamination.

“In the past, you have one school that may have a process where they use a bucket and a mop, and they clean a classroom, then they move to the next classroom,” said OCPS’ Kevin Ballinger. “And until they feel by their own mind that this bucket needs to be empty, you are basically cross contaminating between the classrooms.”

The school district said it will also introduce a new electrostatic sprayer, which will allow custodians to disinfect deeper than surfaces.

School officials hope that getting each of the district’s custodians on the same page during the summer will help them prevent germs from spreading once students return in the fall.