K-12 students should be able to either wash or sanitize their hands multiple times over the course of a school day: before eating in the cafeteria, before and after gym class or sports practice—and at those inevitable moments when kids sneeze or cough into their hands in the middle of class.
Current purchasing procedures often only include soap. Fortunately, many K-12 school districts can tap into existing funding sources to pay for a comprehensive hand hygiene program.
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There are multiple budgets that K-12 schools can use to pay for an advanced hand hygiene program.
Recommended Hand Hygiene Products
The hand hygiene products recommend for K-12 schools include PURELL® Advanced Hand Sanitizer in or near:
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Restrooms, locker rooms and athletic facilities
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Cafeterias, classrooms and administrative offices, and teachers’ lounges
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Main entrances, bus-loading areas and high-traffic areas throughout the school
Multiple studies have demonstrated that having a complete hand hygiene program in K-12 school is highly beneficial—reducing absenteeism for not only the students, but the teachers as well.1,2 When you have teachers and students in the classroom consistently, everyone has the chance to perform at their best—in academics, athletics, and overall achievement.
Five Ways to Find the Money for a School Hand Hygiene Program
K-12 school administrators are often able to use existing budgets to pay for different components of a comprehensive hand hygiene program. Some of the common places you can find funding include:
- General facilities budget
- Athletic department
- Nutrition budget
- Administrative budget
- PTA/Booster club
A school’s general facilities budget typically only covers soap, but some do include hand sanitizer, hand sanitizing wipes and surface cleaners. Products such as PURELL® Advanced Hand Sanitizer are more commonly found in other places, such as the athletic department. The health and wellness of student-athletes is always a concern.
Nutrition or food-service budgets can frequently be used to purchase hand sanitizer. A district may also have a separate budget for administrative areas within schools, which may be used to make PURELL™ products available to staff and visitors. Parents and teachers also dig into their own pockets to pay for kids’ at-school hand hygiene needs.
How to Advocate for Hand Hygiene Improvement in Your District’s Schools
When teachers and administrators want to implement a complete hand hygiene program, they might need to come up with creative ways to get hand sanitizer included because it is usually not included with soap in the procurement budget. Additional spending will typically require the approval of the school board or superintendent, and having a school nurse or principal attend the meeting as an advocate can be helpful.
Want to learn more about how you can improve the health of your school? Find out how the PURELL HEALTHY HANDS CAMPAIGN™ is helping K-12 schools make hand hygiene an everyday lesson with classroom activities and educational materials.
And find out how you can Earn FREE PURELL for Your School.