University of Wisconsin - Extension

Over 67 percent of Wisconsin's schools have participated in Integrated Pest Management, or IPM programming in an effort to reduce health risks to children. A total of 1,395 schools had voluntarily participated in the program by August and new state legislation on pesticide use in schools was enacted in September.

The new state law requires schools to post a 72-hour notice of pesticide applications and only individuals certified as pesticide applicators may apply chemicals to school grounds and property.

University of Wisconsin-Extension and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) have been working

together since 1998 to help the state's K-12 schools develop Integrated Pest Management Programs, which encourage the use of alternatives to chemical pesticides. As of August, the program had reached 54 percent of the school districts in Wisconsin, with 229 public school districts and 34 private schools participating. This participation ranged from attending training seminars to having IPM professionals visit the school and make specific recommendations.

Karen Delahaut, UW-Madison/Extension, IPM Outreach Specialist has visited many of the schools.

"One thing we began to notice this past summer when visiting schools where buildings and grounds personnel had previously attended a training seminar was that they were implementing changes in their pest management practices based on what they had learned," Delahaut said. "One school in particular advised their administration that they would no longer honor requests by teachers and parents to treat classrooms to control head lice outbreaks and developed a "no nit" policy with school health professionals instead."

While children may be more sensitive than adults to pesticide exposure, many schools routinely use a variety of pesticides to control everything from cockroaches in the lunchroom to crabgrass in the playing fields. Prior to the IPM program, an EPA-funded survey revealed that most of Wisconsin's public and private schools responding used pesticides both indoors and out, and 85 percent did not have a pesticide use program.

IPM training seminars are being conducted throughout the state for school staff and pest control professionals. Introductory seminars ran through October, with a final session scheduled for Nov. 6 in West Salem. Advanced seminars are scheduled for Nov. 1 in Wausau, Nov. 8 in West Salem, Nov. 13 in Milwaukee and Nov. 15 in Green Bay. For more information, contact your county extension office or Brian Becker, School IPM program coordinator at (608) 224-4547 or by email at brian.becker@datcp.state.wi.us. For online information about the training seminars, go to http://datcp.state.wi.us/arm/agriculture/pest-fert/pest/school_ipm.html .

Wisconsin's public and private schools have formed a network to help each other develop IPM programs. A school IPM manual has been produced to help Wisconsin schools develop school IPM programs. The manual is available online at http://ipcm.wisc.edu/programs/school/ . For more information on integrated pest management and pesticide applicator training, visit the UW-Madison/Extension Integrated Pest Management web site at http://ipcm.wisc.edu/ .