Back to school often means back to germs. All the hard surfaces that students touch every school day – like door handles, railings, shared electronic devices, water fountains, sports equipment, and other common high-touch surfaces – are potential sources of contamination. So, it’s vital that students clean their hands at key moments throughout their school day.
Hand hygiene can become a lifelong healthy habit if kids are taught at an early age and are followed up with regular encouragement. The basics of good hand hygiene are pretty straightforward – either washing your hands with soap and clean water for at least 20 seconds or using a quality hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol. Some harder questions are, “How often should hands be cleaned?” and “Should we clean our hands five times a day, a dozen times, or more?”
A recent study conducted by The Bradley Corporation1 showed that the majority of individuals throughout the 2-year study reported washing their hands between 6 and 15 times per day. The actual number differed depending on the perception of germ risk; in the pandemic’s early days (March 2020), the average American washed their hands 10.5 times per day compared to 7.8 times per day in early 2022.
While we all would prefer a tangible target to achieve, like tracking our daily steps, kids are different, and their situations (and germ exposures) are different, so, unfortunately, there isn’t a specific hand hygiene number that you should try to reach; it’s about cleaning hands at the right times – when kids are more likely to pick up germs and spread them to others.
While hand hygiene is always important, there are certain moments and even “movements” that may make a bigger difference for germ control, particularly in settings like schools.
Top 5 Moments for Students to Clean Their Hands During the School Day:
1. After using the restroom. It’s always a good idea to clean your hands after using the restroom – restrooms are germy spaces. In fact, one study showed that within an hour of restroom use, more than 500,000 bacteria were found on each square inch of surface!2 For added confidence, after using the restroom, consider teaching students to wash their hands with soap and water and then use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer after their hands are dry. Many schools provide hand sanitizer near the exit door or directly outside of restrooms for this purpose.
2. Before consuming food, like lunch or snack time. Simply put, when you eat without cleaning your hands, the germs on your hands go into your mouth. This is, in fact, a very common mode of transmission for many illnesses, including the common cold. At home, it’s easy to wash hands with soap and water before eating. When at school or on the go, it may be more practical to use hand sanitizer. Attaching a portable hand sanitizer to your children’s lunch bags is a great option to make cleaning before eating fast and easy.
3. After blowing noses, sneezing/coughing into hands, or touching garbage. In community settings like schools (and at home), it’s important to avoid “sharing” our germs with others. A common way this happens is by inadvertently “contaminating” our hands and then touching and contaminating objects that can further spread these germs (called fomites). It’s also possible to re-infect yourself with your own germs. In fact, pink eye is often spread in this way.
4. When moving between shared spaces within the school building. As we said before, commonly touched surfaces are potential sources of germs. Students can keep germs from coming along with them by cleaning their hands as they move – for example, using the water fountain, playing outdoors, using shared electronic devices like computers or tablets, and transitioning between “specials” such as gym, music, library, or art class. If students cleaned their hands before and after these movements, it’s possible that schools could avoid a lot of germs spreading throughout the facility.
5. When students get home from school. Help prevent the transfer of school or bus germs into your home by having kids wash their hands when they arrive home or, for convenience, consider placing a bottle of hand sanitizer by the door – to break the germ cycle – so kids can use it before touching anything else.
At each of these moments – or movements – washing with soap and water is a great way to clean hands, particularly if they are visibly dirty. But it’s not always practical, especially when time is tight. Hand sanitizer is a great option, especially for convenience, when there are a lot of hands to clean quickly, kids are “on the move,” or on other occasions when soap and water aren’t available.
The right solution for the right moment
Parents and guardians can arm their kids with portable hand sanitizers to ensure they have easy access to clean hands during their school day. A hand sanitizer bottle attached to a backpack or lunch bag can act as a visible reminder to clean their hands. Classrooms are great places to have a hand sanitizer bottle readily available, so consider donating a bottle to your child’s teacher. (Remember that children under six should be supervised when using hand sanitizer.)
As you’re stocking up on your child’s supply list for back-to-school season, set them up for success with hand sanitizers that are safe and effective, and they’ll enjoy using. Consider sending your child back to school with these PURELL® hand sanitizers:
For more back-to-school content, check out some of these other GOJO blog posts: