Principal Investigator: Margaret Huelsman, Ohio School IPM Program Coordinator
The Ohio School IPM Program received $2382 to mail the manual IPM in Ohio Schools to all public school districts. The manual was adapted from a school IPM manual written for Pennsylvania schools. The original intent was to mail the manuals in the fall of 2003. However the manuals were not available to mail until November due to printing delays. In the mean time it was learned that the Ohio Pesticide Education Program was planning a series of trainings targeting school personnel. The new Ohio pesticide law will require after July 2004 that anyone who applies pesticides on school property must be licensed to do so. The tightening of the pesticide law as it applies to schools provides an excellent opportunity for the promotion of IPM in schools. Therefore it was determined to be mutually beneficial for both programs to mail the flyer announcing the pesticide certification trainings with the manual. This will allow us to use the new pesticide education law to emphasize the need for an IPM in School and give the schools options for dealing with change (e.g. get someone licensed and/or implement IPM). Furthermore the Pesticide Education Program has only received a small grant to conduct these training programs for school personnel. By eliminating the cost for postage more money can be spent on programming. The flyer for the pesticide certification training program will not be finished until January 2004 as they are still working out the details for each training site. Consequently the IPM in Ohio Schools manual will be mailed with the Pesticide Education Program flyer to Ohio schools in February 2004 at a cost of $1985. The book Exploring Urban Integrated Pest Management will not be mailed with any of the IPM in Ohio Schools manuals as originally proposed. These books will be given to the elementary schools in our new pilot program with the Westerville City Schools as a reward for participation in the program.