Dare County Schools

This notice is being distributed to comply with the North Carolina School Children’s Health Act. Dare County Schools has adopted an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Policy to comply with this law. IPM is a holistic, preventive approach to managing pests that minimizes pesticide use in our schools and on school grounds.

The IPM Coordinator’s Office maintains the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) of each pesticide product that may be used on school property. The MSDS are available for review upon request by a parent, guardian, staff member, or student attending the school. Also, the IPM Coordinator is available to help answer any questions you might have about the school system’ s pest management program and pesticide use decisions.

Notification of Pesticide Use: Our school system may find it necessary to use pesticides to control pests at your school or other school system site. North Carolina state law gives you the right to be notified annually of our school system’s pesticide application schedule, and 72 hours in advance of pesticide applications made outside that schedule, but the latter only if you request notification ahead of time. Dare County Schools contracted pest manager visits and inspects our schools during the first week of each month.

Exemptions: Certain relatively low-risk pesticides are exempted from these notification requirements, including antimicrobial cleansers, disinfectants, self-contained baits and crack-and-crevice treatments, and any pesticide products classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as belonging to the US EPA’s Toxicity Class IV, "relatively nontoxic." Your right to be notified extends to all non-exempt pesticide applications at your school or other non-school site (office building, garage, workshop, etc.), both indoor and outdoor pesticide applications, and including applications that take place over summer recess, holidays, weekends, or after school hours.

Emergency Pesticide Use: In the event that a non-exempt pesticide must be used for a pest control emergency at your school or other site and there is not adequate time to notify you more than 72 hours in advance, and you have requested advance notice, you will receive a notice of emergency pesticide application less than 72 hours before, or as soon as possible after the pesticide application.