Why should schools develop a pest management policy?
Decreasing pesticide use is key to protecting our children’s health, but despite good intentions to simply reduce use, experience shows that adopted policies are necessary to ensure best practices in the long run. Adopted policies eliminate the use of the most hazardous pesticides, outline specific steps to solving pest problems, ensure complete implementation, and guarantee that pesticides will not be used even when changes in staff occur. To assist community members in reducing pesticide use in schools, the Washington Toxics Coalition has created a Healthy Schools Pesticide Action Kit (128kb PDF file). It contains fact sheets, reference tables, and resource lists to help pass a strong policy for your local district. It also includes a model policy for school districts. For more information on districts with strong policies, please visit our Success Stories page.
