Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) are the future; Isaac Asimov and the rest of classic sci-fi have been telling us this for decades.
Facility solutions provider ABM recently announced that it will be partnering with the Dooly County School System in Vienna, Ga., to form an Energy Performance Contracting program. The program will save the school district about $3.7 million in energy and operating cost savings over the next 20 years, according to a press release.
CloroxPro recently announced that it has launched an online learning platform to help educate and train commercial cleaning professionals. CloroxPro HealthyClean is intended to help boost the knowledge and skills of cleaning and maintenance staff as these workers’ responsibilities have skyrocketed during the last two years.
Robotics company OhmniLabs recently debuted an autonomous cleaning robot that uses UV-C light to disinfect spaces. OhmniClean is capable of disinfecting a 3,000-square-foot space in less than 15 minutes and was designed for use in schools, hospitals, hotels and other spaces that require deep cleaning of high-touch surfaces.
As schools and universities prepare for the return of students and faculty after nearly a year of remote learning, many are faced with growing concerns around how to keep facilities safe in the post-pandemic world. This is doubly true when considering that crucial HVAC and building management systems (BMS) are often outdated and in need of replacement.
Kellermeyer Bergensons Services, LLC (KBS), which partners with facility managers at more than 75,000 locations around North America, has announced the acquisition of Olympus Building Services, a leading provider of facilities services in higher education.
Members of the Hoover school board in Hoover, Ala., met this week to discuss a series of upcoming capital projects totaling $98 million.
The University of Colorado announced that it is partnering with commercial real estate firm JLL for the sale of the CU South Denver facility in Lone Tree, Colorado.
K–12 schools and colleges issue ID cards to students, faculty, staff, and sometimes even visitors to campus. The logistics of creating and printing these cards—especially Smart Cards with technical capabilities—are more complicated than you might think. Sponsored by HID Global.
K-12 instruction is being delivered in many different permutations right now, and so families are making various choices for the education of their students. By mid-March 2021 more than three-quarters of fourth- and eighth-grade students (76%) were being offered the chance to attend public schools open at least some of the time for face-to-face lessons. But just a fraction of those students attended in-person instruction. The remaining 24% of grade 4 and grade 8 students were in schools that were only online.
In the Spirit Lake Community School District in Spirit Lake, Iowa, the school board has awarded a construction bid for a project that Superintendent Dr. David Smith says has been in the pipeline for quite some time—a “bus barn” to house the district’s school buses.
Becker College, a small private college with campuses in Worcester and Leicester, Mass., announced on Monday that it will shut down at the end of the academic year. The college’s permanent closure is due to financial difficulties exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two Illinois public school districts recently purchased electric school buses from Georgia-based bus manufacturer Blue Bird Corporation. These buses are both the first operational electric school buses in the state, as well as the first commercial application of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology in the country.
Austin Independent School District (AISD) officials in Austin, Texas, spent last week walking through schools and surveying the aftermath of the recent wave of winter storms. The verdict: Ninety of the district’s 130 schools were affected, and the total damage is estimated at about $15 million.
Remote learning has had a dramatic impact on the number of miles school buses drove in the past year. According to Synovia Solutions, school buses reduced their miles by 40% in 2020, a total of two billion fewer school bus miles during the year.
MeTEOR Education, a company that offers turn-key services for space design, announced it is making medical and industrial-grade Continuous Air & Surface Pathogen Reduction (CASPR) technology available for schools. The technology has been used in hospitals and medical centers for some time but it is now available to schools.
Georgetown University has taken the next step in its commitment to sustainability by committing to obtaining two-thirds of its total electricity consumption directly from "local" solar farms in Maryland and New Jersey.
Although you set your initial school maintenance plan during the late summer months, now is a good time to evaluate its effectiveness, find opportunities to refine your processes, and make sure you and your teams are doing all you can to safeguard students and staff if and when they enter your doors in person.
3M’s Commercial Solutions Division launched a new line of products that reduces the labor and product costs associated with routine floor maintenance, according to the company.
This year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses like the flu is more important than ever.
Building Solutions, a real estate and facility assessment advisor, announced their “Building Solutions for Brighter Futures” campaign, an initiative that helps make improvements in underserved Dallas-Fort Worth area schools with the hope it will help achieve better outcomes for K-12 students.
The Cleaning Industry Research Institute (CIRI) will host a three-part webinar series called “COVID-19: The Second Wave,” beginning Thursday, Nov. 12.
How do you create a hygienic and safe environment equipped to handle everyday usage and increased handwashing activity by students, faculty, administration and staff? And, how do you improve the restroom experience to make it more appealing to its users?
Floors are too often overlooked when it comes to fighting the spread of infection. For many years, many hospital administrators did not even believe it was necessary to disinfect floors. Now we know better. Floors, as well as the tools used to clean floors, deserve close attention when it comes to minimizing the spread of coronavirus.
Imagine a Roomba with a plastic pillar on top, roaming through a room dispensing disinfectant onto chairs, table-tops and other surfaces.
A building’s HVAC technology can help decrease the transmission rate or mitigate the risk of exposure. Thus, schools must consider their HVAC system as part of their overall COVID-19 mitigation strategy, in addition to social distancing, cleaning, screening, signage and operational practices.
The eight-month campaign recognizes the work of K-12 custodians across the country and honors them and their school with a $15,000 prize package.