2007-08 Adopted Plan - Wake County Public School System

Growth RequestsThe effects created converging, competing demands as staff racesfrom school to school to try to keep current with fi re ant demands allowsfewer and fewer hours that can be spent at any one school. Even longestablished preventive maintenance schedules that allowed effi cientArea and Regional focus by the three existing technicians are now beingeffectively abandoned, because most fi re ant calls are emergency callsand require immediate response from wherever an IPM staff member islocated when the call is received. This means that staff is having to dropwhat they are doing, drive across the county, attend to a time-consumingand dangerous pest problem, and hope to resume their regular workduties and schedule the next day. Unfortunately, the same thing happensthe next day. This is reducing time each staff person can spend at any oneschool to approximately an hour and a half per month, when a minimumof three hours are required for the most routine pest management andassistance to school staff, not including fi re ant control.school system. It is expected that the safety and health of the studentsand staff who occupy WCPSS’s facilities must be preserved so that theycan continue to focus on teaching and learning.Legal Implications (if any):Failure to act with due diligence in response to known hazards placesWCPSS in a position of being negligent, per se. Because of the rapidincrease in fi re ant invasions of our facilities with resulting known studentinjury, and because of the known relation of insects and food borne illness,a proactive response to these hazards is needed. Also, the increase innew school construction, year-round school conversion and old schoolrenovation will create more human-to-pest interactions. Failure to act inthe face of these hazards will subject WCPSS to unnecessary risk.Requested staff will be fi lled with licensed Pest Control Operators. Oneposition will be dedicated to fi re ant control, including wide area controlsuch as football fi elds and playgrounds. This is a specialized activity thatcan no longer be performed by athletic coaches. It requires close timingand scheduling with proposed fi eld use, thus must be attended to by aperson not subject to being pulled off a task by emergency calls. Theother requested position will allow creation of an IPM system in which onetechnician works within one assigned Region, which mimics the currentMaintenance and Operations (M&O) Department system. Further, theclose relationship of the person to the Region allows the technician toreally “know” the problems in his/her Region and effi ciently attend tothose problems. We show a vital need for three more positions .This initiative is further accelerated by the School Children’s Health Actrequirements. These are explicit legislative imperatives to comply withpublic expectations of public school facilities. Without the requested two(2) additional staff positions, WCPSS will experience unwanted insect,rodent, bird, bat and other small animal invasions. These invasionsare detrimental to health and damage property and erode the studentteachereducational environment. Dollars spent on IPM maintain ateaching environment conducive to undisturbed learning and do so atpeak effi ciency by leveraging teaching and administrative dollars andeffort. Environmental dollars create the best physical environment forlearning and maintaining the environment for all who interact with the221 FY 2007-08 Plan for Student Success