The Northeast School IPM Working Group: Successful collaborations to support and promote school IPM inplementation

The mission of the Northeast School IPM Working Group is to develop and share tools and resources, and to foster collaboration and networking across the twelve northeastern states plus the District of Columbia. The goal is to promote and support IPM adoption and learning in pre K-12 schools to protect children’s health, manage costs and provide a productive and comfortable environment for learning.  The working group collaborates with other regional school IPM working groups and its co-leaders serve on the National School IPM Steering Committee.  Our diverse membership represents government agencies, small businesses, school professionals, non-profits and Extension. Recent accomplishments include: development of a school IPM Environmental Management Planning Tool and a school turf quality assessment tool, establishment of state-level stakeholder committees, school IPM demonstrations and staff training workshops, and identification of priority needs and opportunities for school IPM research, management, outreach and regulation. In addition we engage with classroom teachers and education organizations in the Northeast and connect IPM educators across the US with the goal of improving IPM literacy among youth.  Current projects include the development of a web-based school IPM ‘best management practices’ tool. Since the Working Group’s inception in 2008, with financial support from the NE IPM Center, we have leveraged additional grant funding from EPA and other sources enabling us to work directly with schools in our region to support and promote IPM adoption through hands-on demonstration and training. Find out more at www.northeastipm.org/working-groups/schools/