Omaha Public Schools 4th visit

On February 24th, our Extension team visited the OPS demonstration school for the 4th Integrated Pest Managment walkthrough. We had a really good turnout...with three PMPs from the contracted company; the IPM Coordinator (head custodian); and environmental and operations professionals from the main OPS office, who have been heavily involved in this effort, all attending.

As we did with LPS, we first spent some time in the conference room discussing questions they had about the recommendations we had provided from our third visit, and about IPM Star. The school and the district are still working out a good system for communicating pest sightings to the pest control company and keeping records in the log book. Although the log books are in place, we encouraged the IPM Coordinator and PMPs to strive to write more details about what has been seen by the school (including teacher and other staff reports) and the resulting treatments done by the PMPs. This will be an important element for IPM Star Certification.

After our meeting, we conducted a walkthrough...visiting the kitchen and kitchen storage, staff lounge, home ec, portable perimeter, boiler room and custodial closets, all of which we'd had concerns about in the past.

The kitchen had had a pretty bad German roach problem when we first began these visits and this has improved dramatically due to better monitoring and cleaning. We did find some active oriental roaches in one corner of the kitchen near sinks and manager's office, which will need to be addressed. We also found some phorid (humpbacked) flies and a moth fly on some of the traps, indicating there is still some moisture and sanitation issues. We encouraged the school to continue their sanitation (especially deep cleaning) efforts, and the PMPs to place more sticky traps to provide for more extensive monitoring.

The kitchen storage room didn't have many problems, although we did find that the trash can handles were made with holes that provided harborage sites and a good place for debris to accumulate. We recommended that these holes be sealed. We also recommended that plastic pallets being used for storage be moved further away from walls so that they don't hinder inspection efforts.

The staff lounge was also vastly improved from it's original high German roach infestation. Much of this probably had to do with removal of conducive furniture (couches, etc.), old wallpaper, and an old pop machine. We encourage continued monitoring in this room.

The boiler room was in good condition as well, but we recommended a continued effort to keep floor drains covered to discourage rats.

One custodial closet had a German roach problem, with nymphs found on traps. Increased sanitation and application of roach gel bait is necessary in this room.

Finally, we visited the home ec room...although we didn't find any roaches as we have in the past, there was a lot of sanitation issues, such as grime under and around stoves, a large hole in the wall under one sink, and clothes behind the washing machine. We spoke with the home ec teacher, who told us about seeing roaches in the past and believing it was a pretty bad infestation. This is another place where sanitation measures should be increased as well as continued monitoring.

Outside,Stephen Vantassel took a look at the perimeter around the portable classrooms. There was evidence of animal entry in holes around the portables. The school will need to take measures to fill in these holes (after making sure the animal is gone) to prevent new inhabitants from moving in.

Overall, the school has made some good improvements, especially in the reduction of German roaches in the kitchen and staff lounge areas. But there are still other improvements and ongoing general IPM practices we are going to encourage them to implement.

Second IPM Visit to Omaha Public Schools

On Sept 9, we visited our OPS demonstration school for the second time. Clyde, Barb, Stephen and I met with administration and staff to discuss how they were progressing on developing a recordkeeping book. They are going to create a print notebook that will either be housed with the IPM coordinator or in the main office that both the staff and the pest management professional can access. The principal mentioned that she will also send information about it out on a school listserv to make staff aware that they can report pest sightings.

After these discussions we visited the kitchen, staff lounge, food storage area, custodial closets and other areas we had seen during the first visit. There is still a roach problem (primarily German in the kitchen and primarily Oriental in the boiler room) and we gave recommendations on how to approach this issue. We were very pleased to see that the Roach prufe that had been applied under Home Ec sinks had been removed. We encouraged the head custodian (IPM Coordinator) to also remove other pesticides, such as Raid, from the facility. We also checked sticky traps and noted what pests were found and replaced with new traps in the same areas to continue monitoring.

Outside, Stephen gave advice on how to better "insulate" portable classrooms from wildlife and rodents, including using hardcloth, sealing holes, and putting crushed gravel or other appropriate materials around foundations where there are gaps.

We will be sending out written recommendations soon...some of them are general practices we have told other schools...remove pesticides such as Raid, check entryways and replace doorsweeps where necessary, reduce moisture and clutter, and increase sanitation in vulnerable areas.


At the tail end of our visit, we also found a great biological control, a Chinese praying mantis, who was in the landscape. I took him home for a few days, then let him go on some bushes at UNL :-)

Week of IPM in Schools in-services

With school about to go back in session, the Omaha and Lincoln Public schools held in-service training for their custodial and food service staff this week and we were invited to speak. On Monday, Clyde, Stephen Vantassel, Barb Ogg, and I spoke at the LPS custodial in-service with about 300 people in attendance. We gave them information about general IPM and the demonstration project going on in the district,as well as presentations on specific pests--flies, rodents, and cockroaches. We also got questions on ants and head lice!

On Wednesday we met at a school in Omaha to train about 100 food service managers. In addition to doing the IPM, roach, and rodent presentations again, we did a talk focused on head lice and bed bugs. Although these wouldn't be probable pests in a kitchen setting, we discussed them at the request of the school. We certainly had their rapt attention, but also saw many shivers and scratching heads during the talk :-)

Finally, today I did a 45 minute presentation on IPM for around 325 LPS food service staff.

We hope that through these in-services and demonstration projects we are doing in the districts that Lincoln and Omaha Public Schools will embrace IPM and encourage its use in all their schools. Cooperation between the pest management company and the school is also of great importance in order to make a good IPM program work. We have emphasized both in the in-services and the visits that a good recordkeeping practice should be put in place to keep the PMP and the school informed of pest sightings and what IPM methods are being used to control pest problems.

We look forward to moving the schools in the direction of IPM with a goal of district adoption.

Big Week

Well, this is the week we start our first IPM demonstration visits to the Omaha and Lincoln public schools! Tomorrow we'll be in Omaha and Wednesday in Lincoln.

We'll be conducting a walkthrough at each school as well as providing the school administration and staff with a presentation about IPM and how the process will work over the next year. We plan to document pests and pest conducive conditions by taking photos and notes, and from these we'll be able to provide recommendations for the schools. We'll also be placing traps in conducive areas.

Stay tuned for a detailed report after the completion of this initial assessment.

Upcoming NE IPM Events

It is going to be an exciting year for Nebraska IPM! June 22, 23 and 29 we'll be conducting our first IPM assessments at the Omaha and Lincoln schools.

July 7 Mark Shour from IA state will be with us at our Nebraska IPM coalition to speak about his experiences with IPM in schools in Iowa.

The first week of August, as part of the North Central IPM Working group meeting, we'll be doing a walkthrough at a Nebraska City school.

Oct 6 Tom Green from the IPM Institute is joining our coalition meeting to talk about IPM Star Certification.

Stay tuned for more details about these important and educational IPM events!

The First In-service

On May 3, four UNL Extension IPM team members (Barb and Clyde Ogg, Stephen Vantassel, and myself) visited the selected demonstration school in Omaha, where we will be starting our IPM assessment June 22. We met with the head of nutrition services, Tammy Yarmon, who had asked us to do an in-service for the food service staff.

During this hour and a half training, we did presentations on general IPM and gave specific information about how the demonstration would work. We also explained what strategies we recommended to the food service staff in particular to help in IPM efforts. These included good cleaning of drains, floors, appliances and surfaces, keeping items stored on metal shelves and in sealed containers, and discarding cardboard boxes as soon as reasonably possible. We explained this is because cockroaches like to hide in the corrugated areas of cardboard (and will also eat it if hungry enough!)

Stephen presented on mice and rats, and Barb talked about cockroaches. There were some definite "Ah ha!" moments, such as how the dark colored, moisture loving Oriental roaches are often called "Waterbugs" but are indeed roaches!

Following the presentations, the food staff took us to the kitchen to show us areas in which they had seen or captured pests. We also looked at the teacher's lounge, where one staff member explained that last time the vending machine had been serviced, she had seen roaches scurry out of it!

We look forward to working with OPS and LPS this summer!