Modern cleaning solutions at Salaspils Secondary School No. 1

Modern cleaning solutions at Salaspils Secondary School No. 1

On a beautiful winter morning we are leaving the city of Riga to visit Salaspils Secondary School No. 1. Irrespective of the thick snow cover which surprised Latvia at the end of November, the school territory is tidy and students can get to the school with dry feet, unless they want to test some snow heaps on the way. 

Salaspils Secondary School No. 1 has a long history. Construction works of the school were started in 1965. On the 1st September 1967 was the first day when Salaspils Secondary School No. 1 opened its doors to students. At present there are 1387 students and more than 140 employees, of whom 100 are teachers, at the school. During these years the school has got a new building and also the first school building has been renovated.

We arrive at the school around lunch time and there is the usual haste at the school when the students of lower grades hurry to have lunch.  We are kindly welcomed by the Head of the Household Department and the Robotics teacher Sandijs Krastiņš who show us around and describe the daily work routines and procedures.

Your household cleaning room is so tidy. How to manage to keep this good order both at the school and the household room?

The work of the cleaning staff is not easy, therefore we do everything possible to make their daily work easier. The tidier the room, the easier it is to find necessary tools. We use concentrated detergents, therefore it is very important that instructions of use of each detergent and labelled dosing bottles are readily accessible, as this reduces the risk of overdosing detergents. We try to restrict the amount of detergents we use and use only water for washing floors a few days a week to avoid formation of a layer of detergents. All the tools which are not on the cleaning cart are put in a wall-mounted holder to ensure that there is order in the room and mops do not get deformed.   

How many employees do daily cleaning at the school and what are the biggest challenges?

Totally 20 cleaning employees perform cleaning at both buildings of the school. 4 employees are located at the school during day time and do cleaning during a day and the others come after classes in the evening. Employees sometimes have sickness leaves and sometimes it is a big challenge to prepare a cleaning schedule. A school is not an easy site for cleaning, as there are many children who are active and maintaining a school tidy is a continuous process. Although students change their footwear at school, the entrance hall needs to be continuously cleaned during winter. We perform regular disinfection of the staircase handrails and door handles. Also, sanitary facilities are cleaned after every break.

How did you learn about “Profiks Clean”?

A year ago, I received an e-mail invitation to a seminar organised by Profiks Clean. Several topics were discussed at the seminar and some of them seemed interesting to me, so we continued speaking with Liene and Andris with whom we implemented several cooperation projects.

Which of the products offered by Profiks Clean seemed interesting to you during the seminar?

At that time, I was interested in cleaning carts. As the size of the household room is restricted and minimum 5 carts need to be placed there, we were looking for compact and robust carts. Profiks presented a cleaning cart with the Longopac bag system which definitely was the added value for this cart. Although this cart is not big, we can place everything needed there - both the box of mops, a bag for dry and wet dirty mops, dosage bottles and everything else. We use the system of mops daily and we use minimum 500 mops for dry and wet cleaning, therefore it was important to have a box for prepared mops. Although this cart was also available without the Longopac system bags, we preferred the Longopac bags because it is very convenient that you don’t need to go to pick up bags, to look for them, instead they are always there on the cart.  This is a great invention and also an environmentally friendly solution because we only throw out waste from the bag. At present we use 5 such carts and our cleaning staff is very satisfied.

What else did you find useful at the seminar?

We knew that scrubber-driers can make cleaning work easier and these were also presented at the seminar. We started with a test of the cleaning machines because seeing a presentation differs a lot from trying it in operation at the school. Test results were obvious, and now the Cleanfix RA 431 is used for cleaning the corridors and the sports hall, also we use the Excentr 30-20 general works machine for scrubbing some rooms. Excentr was also very useful after construction works when there were hard to remove stains in the sanitary rooms. We have noticed that the school is cleaner now and the devices have provided the expected result. Now 2 employees operate the scrubber-driers and take care of them.

We would like to thank the Head of the Household Department Sandijs from Salaspils Secondary School No. 1 for this meeting, the started cooperation and positive references about our products.  We appreciate cooperation partners who care about cleanliness and tidiness of their premises because the learning process is much more successful and it is much more pleasant to stay in clean environment.