Monday, August 13, 2007

The Wake County Public School System has adopted an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Policy for managing insect and rodent intruders at our schools. IPM is a holistic, preventive approach to managing such pests.  IPM minimizes pesticide use in our schools and on school grounds. For the last ten years WCPSS has concentrated on removing pest habitats from schools rather than using pesticides for pest management.  For the purpose of this notification, pesticides fall into two (2) categories:  “exempt” pesticides are relatively low risk/non-toxic and “non-exempt” pesticides are relatively higher risk/toxicity.  As of July 1, 2007, “non-exempt” pesticides are NOT used inside any WCPSS building.  We are the first school system in North Carolina to achieve this level of “green” pest management. Occasionally, “non-exempt” chemicals are still used on outside grounds to treat pests like wasps, hornets, and fire ants that do not respond to other treatments. 

WCPSS is required under the recently adopted "School Children's Health Act" [(NCGS 115C - 47 (45) (a)] to notify all students’ parents, guardians, and custodians as well as school staff of the schedule of “non-exempt” pesticide use in and on WCPSS property.  Further, the statute requires WCPSS make available any updates to the schedule upon request. 

The Environmental Health and Safety Department has prepared an annual "Notification" and "Request for Notification” documents to comply with statute-specific guidelines. These two documents are located on the WCPSS internet website in the “Parents” section.  The web page address is http://www.wcpss.net/pest-management/.