Category: Safety Blog

Good afternoon and Happy Friday!  This week’s safety snippet involves something all of us have probably experienced at some point in our lives, eye injuries.  The link, Kardmas Eye Care of New England, has several different eye injuries that can occur, and our PDF is from Guardian with reference to the ANSI/ISEA Standards.  Remember, when it comes to PESH/OSHA, ANSI is one of the standards they often incorporate by reference into their standards.  Enjoy your day and have a great weekend!  Five Most Common Eye Injuries at Work and How to Prevent Them | Workplace Eye Awareness Month – Kadrmas Eye Care New England

Good morning and Happy Friday!  This week’s safety snippet involves something all of us have probably experienced at some point in our lives, eye injuries.  The link, Kardmas Eye Care of New England, has several different eye injuries that can occur, and our PDF is from Guardian with reference to the ANSI/ISEA Standards.  Remember, when it comes to PESH/OSHA, ANSI is one of the standards they often incorporate by reference into their standards.  Enjoy your day and have a great weekend!

Five Most Common Eye Injuries at Work and How to Prevent Them | Workplace Eye Awareness Month – Kadrmas Eye Care New England

Good morning and Happy Thursday!  This one is coming a day early as we will be out doing an Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) assessment tomorrow so we felt this was a fitting one to share.  Here is a couple links with resources pertaining to school indoor air quality and asbestos.  One is the EPA, and the other is NYS DOH.  The PDF is a good activity, from Vector, to share with your staff to see how much they know as well as how they would react to potential asbestos exposure scenarios.  Remember to review with custodial and maintenance staff the locations of potential or confirmed Asbestos Containing Materials.  Enjoy your weekend and stay warm!

Creating Healthy Indoor Air Quality in Schools | US EPA

New York State School Environmental Health Program

Good morning and happy Friday!  This week’s safety snippet we chose to revisit some resources regarding mental health.  We always assume everyone is doing okay or they will ask for help if they need it but often times when someone is struggling, the “breadcrumbs” are subtle.

The link is SAMHSA’s 988 Toolkit which has printable and orderable materials to draw awareness to not only the crisis hotline but signs to watch out for.

988 Partner Toolkit | SAMHSA

Have a great weekend and if you are off next week, enjoy your break!

Good morning and Happy Friday!  To begin February, we thought we would send out a good resource on ideas we can try to keep ourselves and our staff members fit.  The resource is from Mantra Care.  20 Fun Office Fitness Challenge Ideas To Give a A Try in 2025

As we close down on another fire inspection season, we want to thank you and your staff who took time out of your busy schedules to take us around all of your buildings.  The top five non-conformance items that we found this year were the following:

1. Flammable and combustible items being stored on top of flammable storage cabinets.
2. Classroom doors being chocked in the open position.
3. Standpipe cabinets being blocked on stages.
4. Electrical panels and service equipment being blocked.
5. Exit diameters being encroached upon.

As you can see 4 of the 5 items really involve storage issues which unfortunately, is limited in most schools.  We will be sending out a request for hazardous materials disposal, within the next month, which can help alleviate some of these issues.  We are still focusing in on science storage areas and ask that your school district’s Chemical Hygiene Officer and Science Teachers be kept in the loop on the spring pickup.

We have started printing up more rescue window stickers, “Do Not Block” signs that are specific to electric panels/service equipment, and a few other labels that can serve as reminders for staff.  If you need any “safety-related” stickers or labels, please reach out to Emily.

Enjoy your weekend and stay safe!

Good morning and Happy Friday!  This site has a few quick snippets to guide some discussions with your staff on various topics applicable to the winter months.  The PDF is a refresher on compression-only CPR and Stop the Bleed.  Next week we will do a Fire Inspection Wrap-up of what we commonly found and how to stay fire safe throughout the year.  Enjoy your weekend!

Top January Safety Topics to Kickstart Your New Year

Good morning and Happy Thursday!  As we are in the middle of fire inspection season, we want to highlight some questions and provide some guidance, on the stickier issues that we face across the region.  The unfortunate part is that we do live in a gray area from time to time.  When these “gray areas” exist, the responsibility ultimately falls upon the districts when a black and white code, regulation, or standard does not fit nice and neat.  The stickier one we get is the utilization of fragrances, air fresheners, plug-in, diffusers, etc.  The attachments are from the NYS Office of General Services offering guidance on this question and a sample policy, if districts choose to make their schools “fragrance-free,” through the Cleaning for Healthy Schools program.

The following is a summarized email to one of our districts that contains how we approach and excerpts from advisements we have received from the State.  The italicized portion is from the NYSED Fire Desk and the bolded is from NYS DOH as referenced by the Fire Desk:

Thank you for reaching out with your concerns.  You are not the only person who has asked this question.  The NYS Health Department (NYSDOH) has a site dedicated to school environmental health program topics (Asthma & Air Quality included) here:  opens in a new windowhttps://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/indoors/healthy_schools/topics.htm#indoor

 

The main source of concern with aerosol products is in changing the air quality in a space.  These products can become asthma triggers in people who are sensitive to them.  Currently there are not any laws or regulations about having aerosols in schools outside of the green cleaning program.  Schools are required to purchase Green Cleaning Products to help keep the air quality in schools safer ( opens in a new windowhttps://www.p12.nysed.gov/facplan/GreenCleaning/greenclean.htm). 

 

Also, schools are required through OSHA/PESH law to maintain a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) on file for all chemicals it purchases/uses on school grounds to maintain the health/safety of staff & students.  SDS’s come from the product manufacturer, and they contain the ingredients in the product along with health/safety, first-aid, disposal, and emergency handling of that product.  Schools are not required to have any chemicals on their grounds without having an SDS on file.  Staff that bring chemical containing items from home are unknowingly violating this law since the school has no idea it is being used.

 

Fire safety can be factor when these products are introduced into the school environment through electrical devices that may not be Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL) approved and could become a fire hazard to the building if they have a failure while in use.

 

Below is information we received in the past from NYSDOH on this topic:

 

Based on our discussion regarding an increase in use of essential oil diffusers in classrooms, I did some research on the topic and how it can potentially affect IAQ and exposure scenarios. Based on that research along with discussions with DOH staff, we offer the following recommendation.

 

Since there are no formal policies on the use of such products at present, and we likewise do not have a policy on their use. However, consistent with our messaging regarding exposure ( opens in a new windowhttps://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/about/exposure.htm) and the prevalence of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in many similar products, ( opens in a new windowhttps://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/air_quality/vocs.htm) we recommend not using products that intentionally release VOCs in to the air.  Ultimately, it would be up to the individual school districts to develop such policies.

 

 

Here are additional resources available to schools that include eliminating aerosols like essential oils from schools:

 

NYS Guide for Asthma Management in Schools(pp 7 & 30):

opens in a new windowhttp://www.p12.nysed.gov/sss/documents/NYSguideAsthmaManagementinSchools.pdf

 

American Lung Association (Asthma-Friendly Schools Initiative):

opens in a new windowhttps://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/asthma/health-professionals-educators/asthma-friendly-schools-initiative

Unfortunately, this is often a difficult situation to handle but having a standard approach may help alleviate that confusion.  Stay well and keep warm out there!

Good morning again.  Here are the additional resources for this week’s safety snippet.  My apologies.

Good morning and Happy Friday!  This week’s safety snippet deals with the more extreme cold temperatures and things to think about as it pertains to working in them as well as first aid for exposure.  The resources this come to us from: OSHA, University of Rochester, and Weather.gov.

On behalf of everyone here at Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES Health and Safety we wish you a safe and Happy Holiday Season!

 

 

Good morning and happy Friday.  This week’s safety snippet is a hodgepodge of winter safety focusing on driving.  The links below are the same that are in the PDF Power Point, which was created for the CA BOCES Print Shop and couriers.  Districts, please feel free to copy, amend, and share as you see fit.  Credit for the YouTube videos go to comedian Charlie Berens, Progressive Insurance, and Ohio’s Bureau of Worker’s Compensation.

If you want the Power Point original, send me an email or call the CA BOCES Health and Safety Desk (716) 376-8276, and we will get it to you.

Midwest Winter Driving School

Everything You Need To Know About Driving In The Snow

Snow & Ice Safety

Good morning and Happy Friday!  After the long week of winter weather, and the approaching holiday season, we thought we would do a “Holiday/Winter Safety Packet.”  These resources and checklists are from a wide variety of sources, we hope they help getting us all thinking on how to be better prepared this winter.  Enjoy your day and have a great weekend!

Good afternoon.  We have been fielding some questions on this topic, lately, both locally as well as statewide.  The link is an example of appropriate signage for non-potable fixtures which has the actual pictogram from the Plumbing Code and was created by the CA BOCES Print Shop.  The snippet is the slide deck from a presentation given by the New York State Department of Health regarding lead in schools.

DoNotDrinkWaterSign

 

Enjoy your week and Happy Thanksgiving!!