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Background on the Healthy Schools Act

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The Healthy Schools Act put into law right-to-know requirements such as notification, posting, and recordkeeping for pesticides used at public schools and public and private child day care facilities (excluding family day care homes). The Healthy Schools Act also requires pesticide use reporting by licensed pest control businesses that work in schools and child day care facilities. Additionally, pesticides with a conditional, interim, or experimental user registration that also contain a new active ingredient or is for a new use are prohibited from being used on a school site or child day care facility. A pesticide is also prohibited if it has been canceled, suspended, or phased out.    wedge  more...

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How the Act Affects Pest Control Businesses

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The Healthy Schools Act of 2000 calls for voluntary integrated pest management (IPM) programs in all California schools and child day care facilities. Pest control businesses should therefore expect a stronger demand for IPM approaches in their work.

In addition, the following mandatory requirements of the Act may affect your business.

  • Pest control businesses must report all pesticides used on any school or child day care site to DPR. This reporting is in addition to the pesticide use reporting already required of pest control businesses.
  • Warning signs must be posted 24 hours before pesticide treatments and remain posted 72 hours after the application.
  • Schools and child day care facilities must retain records of pesticides used on each school site for at least four years.
  • Parents are must be notified of expected pesticide treatments for the coming year.
  • Parents who have registered with the school district or child care facility must be notified at least 72 hours before individual pesticide applications.
  • Certain pesticides, PDF (136 kb) are exempt from the Healthy Schools Act’s recordkeeping, notification, and posting requirements.

Except for pesticide use reporting, all of the requirements are the responsibility of the school district’s IPM coordinator or the child day care facility manager. Although some schools or child day care facilities may choose to delegate some or all of these tasks the authority to contractors, the school or child day care facility is ultimately responsible for complying with the requirements and should provide oversight.

To comply with the Healthy Schools Act, effective communication is essential between pest control businesses and the schools and child day care facilities they serve. Schools and child day care facilities will need to know of any pesticide treatments well in advance to enable them to notify parents 72 hours before the event. Schools and child day care facilities and their pest control business(es) will similarly need to discuss products to be included in the annual notification letters.


Reporting Pesticide Use and Maintaining Records      |legislative text|

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The Healthy Schools Act requires pest control businesses to report all pesticide applications made at a school or child day care facility site to DPR, unless the pesticides are exempted from registration in California. Records of these applications must be submitted to DPR on the school pesticide use reporting form, PDF (122 kb). The forms must be submitted annually by January 30th and may be submitted more often at the discretion of the pest control business. This requirement is in addition to the existing, monthly pesticide use reporting requirements that must be submitted to the County Agricultural Commissioner of the county where the work was performed.

Pest control businesses should maintain records of pesticide use for the following reasons:

  • California regulations require pest control businesses to maintain records of pesticide use. In fact, more detailed records are required for pesticide applications made at schools and child day care facilities (time application was completed, name and address of the school or child day care facility, and application location, such as playground, cafeteria, etc.).
  • Schools and child day care facilities must now retain records of pesticide use for four years under the Act. The pest control business will have to provide this information to them.
  • Maintaining complete records is essential to any effective IPM program.

The law does not require schools or child day care facilities to keep records for treatments involving exempt products, PDF, (136 kb), such as baits and traps. While these exemptions apply to school or child day care facility recordkeeping, they do not apply to recordkeeping or reporting by licensed pest control businesses. Pest control businesses are still required to keep records and report use of Healthy Schools Act-exempt products to DPR, unless they are products otherwise exempted from registration in California. As part of a sound IPM program, DPR recommends keeping records of ALL pest management activities. Keeping these records is an important part of an IPM program, and also allows facilities to document their use of least-toxic alternatives.

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Posting Before Treatments      |legislative text|

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The Healthy Schools Act requires each school and child day care facility to:

  • Post warning signs 24 hours before treatment at each site where pesticides will be applied.
  • Leave signs posted for 72 hours after treatment.
  • Display the term “Warning/Pesticide Treated Area” on the signs and include the product name, manufacturer’s name, U.S. EPA product registration number, intended date and areas of application, and reason for the pesticide application.

Depending on contractual arrangements, pest control businesses may be required to post these signs.

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Notifying Child Day Care Facilities      |legislative text|

The law requires that child day care facilities be notified 120 hours before a planned pesticide treatment. The property owner or property owner’s agent, or the person hired to apply pesticides must provide notice to the child day care facility’s manager so that the child day care manager has enough time to provide the required 72 hour notice to parents.

Notifying Parents      |legislative text|

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The law requires schools and child day care facilities to notify parents in three situations:

  1. Notify parents of expected pesticide treatments for the coming year. Pest control businesses may need to work with IPM coordinators, school administrators, or child day care facility managers to develop product lists for these notifications. The notifications must identify the active ingredient or ingredients in each product, as well as the product name itself. Remember that there are usually many products that contain a given active ingredient. Also, there is sometimes more than one active ingredient in a product. You can look up product names from active ingredient, and vice versa, using the "Look up pesticide active ingredients" link below.
  2. Notify registered parents before individual pesticide applications
    Schools and child day care facilities must notify interested parents (i.e. parents that registered with the school or child day care facility to receive additional pesticide information) of planned pesticide treatments at least 72 hours before each application. The notices must include name, active ingredient(s), and intended date of application.
  3. If a product to be used was not listed in the most recent annual notification, the school IPM coordinator or child day care facility manager must notify all parents at least 72 hours before application.

To comply with these notification requirements, pest control businesses and school districts or child day care facilities must set up an effective communication strategy so that administrators have enough advance notice to prepare the necessary letters.

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Selecting Least-Hazardous Methods       |legislative text|

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The Healthy Schools Act establishes “least-hazardous pest management” strategies as a goal for all California schools and child day care facilities. Pest control businesses will play a big role in accomplishing this goal by developing sound IPM programs for their customers.

Pest management professionals should already be familiar with IPM. In an IPM program, prevention is always the preferred strategy. Monitoring is essential to decide whether treatment is really necessary, and to measure the success of previous efforts. When you do use pesticides, you will want to choose the least hazardous products possible for the job. Remember that just because a tactic is “standard practice” does not mean it is the best choice, in terms of either effectiveness or safety. For example:

  • Perimeter spraying is generally a poor tactic for ant control. While such sprays may appear to give quick results, they have little effect on the colony.
  • Calendar-based treatment schedules are generally inappropriate. Though convenient to schedule, calendar-based spraying usually results in unnecessarily high pesticide use.

The resources below will help you to minimize the use of chemical pesticides.

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IPM Kit for Pest Control Businesses

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To make things easier, we have assembled some essential items into a downloadable packet.

Download complete kit or download individual documents below. We have included versions that you can edit (Microsoft Word) for some documents; others are in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.