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Integrated Pest Management Training for Virginia Schools

Dini M. Miller, and Edwin E. Lewis

Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech

216 Price Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061

(540) 231-4918

(540) 231- 9131

dinim@vt.edu, lewise@vt.edu

Executive Summary

Many school administrators are reluctant to answer questions about pesticide use on school grounds because of possible liability. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an environmentally friendly approach to protect school personnel from pests and the risks of pesticide exposure. Recently, several bills have been put before congress that included proposals to regulate pesticide use in schools. In 2000, a School IPM pilot program was established in Montgomery Co., VA which included structural IPM training for school personnel. Montgomery Co. Public Schools adopted School IPM. This success resulted in the Virginia Department of Agriculture funding an expansion of IPM training to districts in northern Virginia (2002). School IPM training has now been provided to 27 counties in VA and we propose further expansion.

Most pesticides are used on school property to control weed and landscape pests. Students, faculty, and staff spend a significant amount of time outdoors. We intend to expand the scope school IPM training to include turf and landscape pest management. Outdoor IPM training is intended to improve the environmental quality of school grounds, and reduce potential pesticide exposure outdoors.

As the Virginia School IPM program expands, the need for literature on implementation increases. We will develop a manual on CD-ROM to aid Virginia schools in developing an IPM program which will be distributed to school personnel at the IPM training workshops.

Impact assessment will require schools to be surveyed 12, 24 and 36 months after training. We will assess risk reduction by evaluating the changes in pest management practices in schools post-training. Over the next 3 years we will collect data on the number of schools that are using IPM their regular pest control. In particular, we will document whether schools have discontinued calendar-based pesticide applications in favor of an IPM program.

Objectives

Overall Objective- To develop a comprehensive IPM program that targets structural and landscape pests in schools.

Specific Objectives

  1. Provide School IPM training for structural pest control to school districts within the state of Virginia.
  2. Expand School IPM training to include outdoor IPM for athletic fields, turf, and landscape maintenance.
  3. Develop a Virginia School IPM training manual on CD-ROM.

Justification

What is IPM?
“Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an environmentally-friendly approach to pest management that relies on common sense practices to manage pests” -U.S. EPA (12)

The Virginia School IPM program will differ from those of several other states by combining landscape pest management and structural pest management into a comprehensive program.

Objective 1. Provide School IPM training for structural pest control to school districts within the state of Virginia.

In April 2000, a pilot School IPM training program was established in Montgomery Co., VA. This pilot program was funded by a grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment and was awarded to the Virginia Tech Urban Pest Management program to provide IPM training. The IPM pilot program included hands-on training for school personnel in structural IPM methodology, and technical assistance with writing an IPM pest control contract and policy statement. This pilot program resulted in the adoption of School IPM in Montgomery County Public Schools and improved the health and safety of 9,236 students and 1,602 employees (6).

The success of the Virginia School IPM pilot program resulted in the Virginia Department of Agriculture funding a proposal to expand the School IPM training to additional counties in northern Virginia (2002). The training was provided by the Virginia Tech Urban Pest Management program and was designed to educate school personnel about the risks associated with their current pest control practices (pest resistance, exposure, and liability) and how these risks could be mediated with the adoption of integrated pest management (1, 2, 6, 8, 12).

Dr. Dini Miller is the Urban Pest Management Specialist at Virginia Tech and the primary instructor for the Virginia School IPM program. Dr. Miller has focused on providing school personnel and their contract pest management professionals with hands-on training in IPM techniques for structural pest control.

To promote the expansion of the School IPM program, Dr. Miller has provided IPM training to Virginia Cooperative Extension agents so that they might Introduce the School IPM concepts to their local schools. IPM training for was also provided by Dr. Miller to the members of the Virginia Pest Management Association (commercial pest control professionals) in 2002. The intention of the pest control operator training was to prepare operators to bid on Virginia school IPM contracts.

It is the goal of the Virginia Tech Urban Pest Management program to continue to expand the School IPM program to additional regions of the state and to encourage the use of integrated pest management techniques for structural pest control in schools. At this time, School IPM training has been provided to 10 counties in Southwest Virginia, 11 counties in Northern Virginia and 6 counties in the Tidewater area (Southeast VA). Since the initiation of the state program in 2002, three school districts have adopted an IPM program (6). In 2003-2004 our aim is to expand the structural School IPM training to school districts located in central and northwest Virginia (~30 additional school districts).

Objective 2. Expand School IPM training to include outdoor IPM for turf and landscape maintenance.

To date all of the IPM training in Virginia has focused on indoor pest management techniques for structural pest like ants, rodents, and cockroaches. However, the majority of pesticide used on Virginia school property is applied outdoors to control weed and insect pests in turf and ornamental plants (4). The outdoor environment is a large portion of the school property. Students, faculty, and staff spend a significant amount of time outdoors during teaching activities, recess, physical education, and sporting events (11). Because the outdoor environment is such an integral part of school activities, many schools that have participated in the structural IPM training have requested training in IPM techniques for school grounds. In addition, the Virginia Pesticide Control Board (Virginia Department of Agriculture) has requested that turf and landscape maintenance information be added to the IPM training.

With the expansion of the School IPM program to additional locations within the state, we also intend to expand the scope of the IPM training to include turf and landscape management. The turf and landscape IPM training will also be offered to school districts that have already completed the structural IPM training program.

Objective 3. Develop a Virginia School IPM training manual on CD-ROM.

As the School IPM program continues to expand in Virginia the need for comprehensive literature covering the design and implementation of an IPM program increases. At this time there is no published Virginia School IPM manual for school districts to use as a reference. As part of the Virginia School lPM program we intend to develop a School IPM manual on CD-ROM which will aid Virginia schools in adopting a School IPM program. Although many quality materials on integrated pest management in schools have been developed in other states and at the national level, we seek to design a manual specifically for Virginia schools. With this in mind, appropriate materials from many sources will be gathered and modified to suit Virginia pesticide regulations, environmental conditions, and pest problems. The Virginia School IPM CD-ROMs will be distributed to school personnel at the IPM training workshops.

Overall Summary

School administrators face tough questions from parents, students, and public interest organizations about pesticide use in school buildings and on school grounds. Although pest management is a very necessary activity in the school environment, it is not a popular topic among school officials. Many school administrators are reluctant to acknowledge that children may be exposed to pests while at school. They may be even more reluctant to discuss the issue of pesticide use because of possible exposure complaints and potential liability. However, there is a philosophy of pest management that minimizes both the real and perceived hazards of managing pests in the school environment. It is an environmentally friendly approach that protects children, teachers and staff from both the annoyance of pests and the risks of pesticide exposure. This philosophy is School Integrated Pest Management or School IPM (6, 11, 12).

The 4 School IPM Practices (6):

  1. Prevention of pest populations using monitoring, sanitation and exclusion.
  2. Application of only the most effective and least toxic methods available for management of targeted pests. Pesticides are used only "as needed".
  3. Precision targeting of pesticides into pest harborages where they will be inaccessible children, faculty, and staff.
  4. Keeping records on site of pesticide applications: record the brand name, active ingredient, date and location of application and the pest problem for which it was used.

School IPM is receiving national attention (1, 5, 7, 11). Recently, several bills have been put before congress that have included proposals to regulate pesticide use in areas where children might be exposed (7, 9, 10). The most recent is the School Environmental Protection Act 2003, a proposed amendment to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (January 2003; H. R. 121). The amendment would require local educational agencies and schools to implement integrated pest management systems to minimize pesticide use in schools and to provide parents, and employees with advance notice of pesticide applications.

Several states already have mandatory school IPM programs (5, 11), where pest monitoring and prevention have replaced monthly pesticide applications. Most of these mandatory programs have resulted from grassroots efforts on the part of parents and regional environmental activist groups, such as LEAF (Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation; Florida and Georgia), MARYPIRG (Maryland Public Interest Research Group) and the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (Washington and Oregon), to reduce pesticide use in local schools (11).

Mandatory IPM programs, either state or federal, can be difficult to implement because for most states, the IPM legislation would be an "unfunded" mandate. For Virginia, a mandatory IPM program would require school districts to change their pest control practices, but no funds would be provided for training in IPM. With no IPM training, most schools would simply be left floundering with their pest problems. Another concern is that the state lead agency (Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services) would have no resources for enforcing an IPM mandate, which would require hundreds of site inspections each year. However, several states have prepared for or avoided IPM mandates by proactively establishing their own school IPM programs on a volunteer basis (Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina).

Several volunteer programs have achieved success by using the infrastructure of the Cooperative Extension Service and state universities to provide IPM training to the local school districts (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina). The technical support provided by the cooperative extension service eased the school district's transition from a monthly pesticide application schedule to an IPM program based on monitoring and reduced toxicity control techniques. The University of Florida is recognized as a national leader in School IPM training. In the past 5 years, the University of Florida and the Cooperative Extension Service have guided over 80% of their public schools through the IPM adoption process (2, 3). The Florida School IPM web site is the most comprehensive in the nation and is used as a reference for most incipient volunteer IPM programs (8). School IPM in the state of Florida exemplifies how a volunteer program can successfully eliminate monthly pesticide applications and control pests prior to state regulation.

At Virginia Tech we believe that a volunteer training program for school personnel and their contract pest management professionals (PMPs) is the most effective way to implement a School IPM program in Virginia. Using the Florida model, our IPM program consists of hands-on technical training where participants are instructed in monitoring, inspection and exclusion techniques for insect pests, weeds and rodents. School personnel and their contract PMPs are trained how to document pest problems and to correct these problems using reduced toxicity techniques. Baiting products are demonstrated for use on structural pests like, cockroaches, ants, rodents, and termites. Trainees are shown how to place baits precisely, where they are accessible to pests yet pose no exposure risk to students, faculty and staff.

Because many of the pesticides used on school grounds are applied to the landscape and turf, training in turf and landscape IPM is essential to any IPM program. A significant portion of IPM training will be added to the existing Virginia School IPM program and will focus on methods for preventing insect and weed pests in turf and ornamental plants. Participants will receive training in landscape maintenance and in plant pest identification. They will also be provided with a list of products acceptable for use in an outdoor IPM program and shown how to apply these products effectively.

In 2000, a survey of Virginia School pest management practices (4) showed that many school employees with pest control responsibilities were not registered as Virginia pest control technicians. The survey results indicated that there were people handling pesticides on school grounds without the pesticide safety training required by the state of Virginia. Not only does this situation present a physical danger to people and the environment but it also creates a liability burden for the schools, if a pesticide accident were to occur.

As an integral part of the School IPM program, school personnel who apply pesticides without state certification, will be identified. Using the Virginia Cooperative Extension service we will provide these individuals with the basic safety information and on the job training necessary for them to qualify for the registered technician exam. Individuals who are qualified to become certified operators will be provided with training in the appropriate category, and examined. Safety training and certification of school personnel will not only bring the school districts into compliance with state law but will also ensure the safety of the school environment by reducing the potential for pesticide mishandling on school grounds.

The purpose of an IPM program in Virginia schools is to protect school personnel from unnecessary exposure to pests and pesticide. We believe that the best way to do this is through the adoption of an IPM program. Our plan is to train the schools in the techniques needed to implement an integrated pest management program so that they can address their pest problems with knowledge and confidence.

Approach and Outcomes

The goal of the school IPM program is to train personnel from Virginia public school districts in the use of IPM techniques to control structural pests and to reduce the risk of pesticide exposure. To this end, Dr. Dini Miller and Dr. Edwin Lewis of the Virginia Tech Entomology Department will provide workshops for school personnel and their PMP’s on IPM techniques for controlling insect, rodent, and weed pests on school grounds.

The structural pest portion of the workshop will begin by having participants complete a survey (3) to document their current pest control practices. The survey will determine the number and type of pesticide applications that schools use to control pests. The results of the survey will be tabulated for an assessment of pesticide use in Virginia schools.

The education portion of the workshop will begin with an introduction to IPM concepts and a discussion of the national movement to reduce pesticide use in locations where children might be exposed. This discussion will be followed by a presentation on the risks associated with Virginia's current pest control practices and the advantages of a volunteer IPM program.

Objective 1. Provide School IPM training for structural pests to school districts within the state of Virginia.

IPM training will begin with school personnel and their pest control professionals discussing the biology and habits of the most common school pests. Next, the training will cover how clutter and garbage provide pests with numerous sources of food, water and harborage and how sanitation and exclusion can make the school habitat less attractive and accessible to pests.

A hands-on laboratory section will cover how monitoring can be used to identify pest harborages and incipient populations before they become large, established and difficult to control. School personnel will be provided with a list of the least toxic products that can be applied "as needed" to control ants, cockroaches, wasps and occasional invaders. Participants will then practice how to use "precision targeting" to apply these products as well as practical exclusion and sanitation techniques which prevent insect and rodent invasion. The purpose of the laboratory portion of the training is to demonstrate how the combination of monitoring, sanitation, exclusion, and precision targeting of pest control products can eliminate the need for repeated applications of spray insecticide.

In continued support of the School IPM program, we will visit or correspond with school officials to provide aid in writing a new pest control contract and policy statement eliminating all “preventive” applications of spray formulation insecticide. The new pest control contract will require monthly monitoring to determine if pests are present, precision targeting of reduced toxicity control products, and the maintenance on-site records of all pest problems and pesticide applications.

Objective 2. Expand School IPM training to include outdoor IPM for turf and landscape maintenance.

A significant portion of the School IPM workshop will focus on IPM methods for the maintenance of school grounds. Dr. Edwin Lewis, Virginia Tech Turf and Landscape Entomologist, will present information on the biology and habits of turf and landscape insect pests. Dr. Lewis will also discuss the concepts of weed management in turf and teach the participants how properly diagnose damage to turf and ornamental plants. Dr. Lewis will also provide a laboratory session where participants tour the school grounds and discuss insect and weed management techniques that are suitable for use in an IPM program. Participants will be provided with a list of the most effective and least toxic products available for turf and landscape management. Participants will also be instructed in the proper application of these products.

As an integral part of the outdoor School IPM program, pesticide safety training will be provided for school personnel who apply pesticides outdoors as part of their employment, but do not have state certification. The Virginia Cooperative Extension agents have agreed to provide this training to school personnel who are identified during the School IPM training program. Agents will provide these individuals with the literature and training necessary to qualify the for the registered technician exam. Safety training and certification of school personnel will not only bring the school districts into compliance with state law (2 VAC 20-51-10 through 2 VAC 20-51-210) but will also insure the safety of school environment by reducing the potential for the mishandling of pesticides on school grounds.

Objective 3. Develop a Virginia School IPM training manual on CD-ROM.

We will be contracting with Dr. Timothy Mack, Assistant Dean of the Virginia Tech Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resources Information Technology (AHNRIT) unit, to design a comprehensive School IPM training manual on CD-ROM. The CD-ROM will serve as an electronic "how-to" manual similar to the printed version designed for the Pennsylvania School IPM program (8). The Virginia training manual on CD-ROM will contain School IPM information for school administrators, a detailed description of IPM concepts and principals, model IPM policy statements, pesticide application records and pest management contracts. The manual will also contain technical information on IPM techniques for controlling specific pests in school buildings and on school grounds. Color training presentations on IPM strategies will also be provided for in-house training of new personnel. Finally, the CD-ROM will include relevant medical pest management information (e.g. headlice and bedbug control) and additional School IPM resources from other states in the U.S.

Impact Assessment

Impact assessment for the School IPM training program will require that the schools be surveyed prior to IPM training and resurveyed at 12, 24 and 36 months after the workshop. The 12-month survey responses will be compared with the information taken from the initial survey (completed at the IPM training program) and used to identify areas where additional training is needed as well as the number of schools that adopted some or all of the IPM strategies. From these data we intend to make a qualitative assessment of risk reduction by evaluating (comparison of frequency and type of pesticide applications before and after training) the changes of pest management practices in schools.

Over the next three years we will collect data, via telephone interview or electronic communication, on the number of schools that adopted an IPM program or are using IPM techniques as part of their regular pest control. In particular, we want to document whether schools have discontinued calendar-based pesticide applications and adopted an IPM policy statement or pest management contract. The school districts that adopt an IPM program will be posted on the Virginia School IPM web site, http://schoolipm.ento.vt.edu (6) along with their contact information, the number of students, number of employees, and the number of buildings effected by the IPM program.

Literature Cited

  1. Greene, A. and N. L. Breisch. 2002. Optimizing IPM for public buildings. Pest Control Technology. 30: 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42.
  2. Koehler, P. G. and C. Scherer. 2002. University of Florida School IPM Training Manual. University of Florida. Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Gainesville, Florida. 252 pp.
  3. Koehler, P.G., T. R. Fasulo and C. Scherer. 2002. School IPM- Readin, Writin' and Riddin' of Bugs. http://www.schoolipm.ifas.ufl.edu.
  4. Long, C. and R. D. Kramer. 2000. Report- Research services to evaluate Integrated Pest Management In Virginia's schools. 12 pp.
  5. McKenna, L. 2001. Don't miss the bus. Pest Control Technology. 29: 23, 26, 28, 30-31, 33-34.
  6. Miller, D. M. 2003. Virginia School IPM (Integrated Pest Management). http://schoolipm.ento.vt.edu.
  7. Professional Pest Alliance. 2002. Giving the green light. Pest control Technology- State of the Industry Report. 30: 14-18.
  8. Pennsylvania Integrated Pest Management program. 2001. IPM for Pennsylvania Schools. PA. 111 pp.
  9. Pest Control Technology Newsline. 2002. School Environmental Protection Act not in final Farm Bill. Pest Control Technology. 30: 28-29.
  10. Pest Control Technology Newsline. 2003. How will the new congress impact the PCOs in 2003?. Pest Control Technology. 31: 14, 23-24.
  11. School Pesticide Reform Coalition and Beyond Pesticides. 2003. Safer schools: achieving a healthy learning environment through Integrated Pest Management- A report. Washington, DC. 52 pp.
  12. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 1993. Pest control in the school environment: adopting Integrated Pest Management. EPA Publication No. 735-F-93-012. Office of pesticide programs. Washington. D. C. U. S. Government Printing Office. 43 pp.

Timetable

Year 1
9/04-2/04

3/04-8/04

Year 2
9/04-2/05

3/05-8/05 (and thereafter)

Major Participants

Dini M. Miller
Virginia Tech
Department of Entomology
312 Price Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
dinim@vt.edu
(540) 231- 4918
FAX (540) 231- 9131

Project Budget

Funding Request
Funding Requested Other Funding Total Funding
$19,656
$21,000
$40,656

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