H1N1 Flu precautions

[Dianne C. Tillman]

I have been asked by my school nurse if I have a keyboard cleaning policy. It has been suggested by the county nurse that we clean computer keyboards on a regular basis during the flu season. I know that I do not have time to clean each and every student computer keyboard in the building.
I told the nurse that I would post this question and see what other districts are doing as far as sanitizing their computer equipment on a regular basis.
Any input would be much appreciated.

[Keith Nelson]

Our District has adopted a policy that the teachers in each lab will wipe them down at the end of the day. A spray bottle of special H1N1 cleaning solution is being provided in each area where there are computers. However we have stressed that it is not to be used on the screens!! We also are in the process of adding hand sanitizer dispensers at each lab.

[Brian Norman]

We have hand sanitizers all over the building now, but I doubt I could get the keyboards wiped. I'm lucky if they shut the lights off and lock the door at the end of the day... :)

Brian

[Dianne C. Tillman]

I hear ya!

Brian Norman said:

We have hand sanitizers all over the building now, but I doubt I could get the keyboards wiped. I'm lucky if they shut the lights off and lock the door at the end of the day... :)

Brian

[Mary Mehsikomer]

This question has also been posted on the MEMO listserv. Most of the responses indicated that it might be easier to have kids sanitize their hands when they come into the classroom or lab rather than trying to clean the equipment every time. Pete Markham also posted some information on how to clean Apple equipment. the idea of sanitizing hands makes sense because a lot of schools will be purchasing hand sanitizers as a precaution for H1N1 anyway. What do the rest of you think?

[Dianne C. Tillman]

I hesitate to have a bottle of anything that can be sprayed anywhere near the computers because it will inevitably be sprayed in copious amounts all over the keyboards and, well, you can figure out the rest of that story. My suggestion was that as the students are going into and out of the computer lab, they get a squirt of hand sanitizer. Except we have been told by the environmental hazard person that alcohol based hand sanitizers should not be used around small children because they can lick it off their hands (yuckers) which isn't a good thing.

[Jon Bergeron]

All of our labs have "lysol" wipes that I encourage the teachers to have the students use before they use the computers as well as hand sanitizer bottles. I also generally at the end of the day wipe down the computers in our labs.

[Dianne C. Tillman]

How many computers do you have in your labs?

Jon Bergeron said:

All of our labs have "lysol" wipes that I encourage the teachers to have the students use before they use the computers as well as hand sanitizer bottles. I also generally at the end of the day wipe down the computers in our labs.

[Heidi Thorstenson]

WAO has installed a disinfectant foam by every door, classroom and office. As each student enters the room they "foam" and when they leave. At the end of week, the business teacher sprays down the keyboards with a special keyboard disinfectant that the janitors found. Also, our janitors are wiping down all door knobs and handles every other day with lysol wipes.

[Mary Muller]

We have hand sanitizer dispensers in two of our labs and the custodians are in the process of adding some to all of the other labs. We could never get all of the labs wiped every day and if we did it would only take one kid to infect them again. Wiping them down every hour is way out of the question unless we hire someone for just that duty. I am not going to leave a spray bottle near any of the labs as I can see it could turn into some new form of a disinfectant food fight with the computers in the middle.
I guess the sanitizer dispenser will have to work.

[Jon Bergeron]

We have 4 labs in the high school of 20 computers(2 desktop labs and 2 mobile) each and our elementary has 4 "labs" (1 desktop, 2 laptop, 1 neo).

Dianne C. Tillman said:

How many computers do you have in your labs?

Jon Bergeron said:

All of our labs have "lysol" wipes that I encourage the teachers to have the students use before they use the computers as well as hand sanitizer bottles. I also generally at the end of the day wipe down the computers in our labs.

[Maureen Moris]

I was told by my superintendent that we will be using hand sanitizer (non-alcohol) going into labs and coming out. Cleaning in between groups was discussed, but it was not really a workable plan and hard on the keyboards. We also were told by the county nurse that the H1N1 germs only live on surfaces for about 8 hours ... so, we should start germ free each day (?). The mice and keyboards will be cleaned periodically/as needed.

[Dianne C. Tillman]

We were told by the county nurse to take extra care to clean surfaces like computer keyboards and mice, that is what brought up the whole discussion about how we were going to accomplish that.

Maureen Moris said:

I was told by my superintendent that we will be using hand sanitizer (non-alcohol) going into labs and coming out. Cleaning in between groups was discussed, but it was not really a workable plan and hard on the keyboards. We also were told by the county nurse that the H1N1 germs only live on surfaces for about 8 hours ... so, we should start germ free each day (?). The mice and keyboards will be cleaned periodically/as needed.