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Funded Project

Funding Program: Regional IPM Grants (S-RIPM)

Project Title: Multi-state Evaluation of School IPM Cost-Calculator and Training Model

Project Directors (PDs): Michael E. Merchant [1] Blake K Bennett [2] Janet Hurley [3]

Lead State: TX Lead Organization: Texas A&M University

Extension Funding: $28,648

Research Funding: $53,606

Start Date: Sep-01-2007 End Date: Aug-31-2009

Area of Emphasis: School IPM

Summary: This proposed research/extension project is a continuation and expansion of two previously funded USDA-SRIPM grants to develop, pretest and publish-online an integrated pest management (IPM) budget Cost-calculator for use by school district facility managers. Funds requested include $28,648 in Smith-Lever (extension) funds and $53,606 in P.L. 89-106 (research) funds. The existing IPM Cost-calculator is a heuristic tool to educate pest management decision-makers about IPM. It also provides users with an estimate of overall pest risk of the school being evaluated, a facilities maintenance budget and a prioritized list of suggested facility improvements. In this project we propose to refine the calculator (by calibrating internal pest risk functions and gathering data on default IPM budgeting costs) and conduct school IPM and Cost-calculator training into five states. Twenty school districts from five states will be selected for hands-on training and on-site IPM audits in Year One. IPM audits will be used to assess actual pest problems compared to risk levels predicted by the Cost-calculator. Face-to-face interviews will be used to gain user feedback and to refine default costs used in the budget creator. A 12 month follow-up survey in Year 2 will evaluate success and the impact of the calculator on administrative IPM decision making in study schools. In Year Two of the study, the project directors will work with participating states to design and implement school IPM workshops. Workshops will target leaders from carefully selected school districts in hopes of developing a core group of interested managers who will participate in ongoing efforts to disseminate IPM practice to other school districts. Impact on IPM perceptions and practices will be evaluated immediately after the workshops. The project is directly relevant to the IPM Roadmap by addressing the problem of how to improve the cost/benefit relationship of IPM for public schools. Although not currently listed as a Southern Region priority, a stakeholder group is currently developing a proposal to develop a national strategic plan for addressing school IPM issues, and school IPM has been recognized as a significant area of concern by several federal agencies. Objectives: Research Objectives: Objectives (and anticipated impacts) of this project are as follows: 1. Improve calibration of the calculator pest risk function. The current IPM Cost Calculator provides users with an estimate of overall pest risk, based on results of a questionnaire concerning historical pest pressure and building maintenance conditions. Impact: This objective will improve the accuracy of the pre-existing cost calculator in estimating pest risks within a school. This pest risk factor can be used by managers to determine the potential impact of different budgets on overall IPM program effectiveness. 2. Gather additional information on default costs for building maintenance and IPM equipment purchases. The IPM Cost Calculator provides users with expected (default) costs for improvements (e.g., installation of air curtains for kitchen doorways, installation of pest proofing for exterior doors, replacement of drain covers, etc.). Calculator testers will be surveyed about the accuracy of existing default values, and these values will be adjusted accordingly. Impact: This objective will improve the usefulness of the budget calculator, making initial budget calculations more accurate. Users will still have the option of modifying default values. 3. Develop a national online database of IPM Cost-Calculator users. Existing software and website will be modified to capture data from all online users of the Cost-Calculator. Impact: The online database will help future calculator users to see where they stand in terms of expenditures and pest risks compared to similar schools across the country, as well as track their own budgets and changes in pest risk. This will expand the utility of the calculator and encourage greater use. IPM coordinators can use such information to assist budget officers in the budgeting process (i.e., by providing comparison data to show where the district stands in comparison to similar districts around the state and country). 4. Estimate the impact of the calculator on the school budget-making process. Participating school districts will be studied to estimate the impact of the Cost- Calculator on the annual budget-making process at pilot schools. Factors to be evaluated will include whether and how the calculator was used after training, historical trends in IPM budgets, impact on the total annual IPM budget the year after calculator introduction, impact of calculator results on reallocation of IPM budget categories, user perception of calculator impact on administrator understanding of, and respect for, the IPM program. Impact: This objective will enable researchers to know whether, and how much, the budget calculator is impacting the IPM decisionmaking process in school districts. Extension Objectives: 1. Evaluate user satisfaction with the budget calculator to determine ways to improve understandability, ease of use and perception of usefulness. This assessment will be conducted immediately after training with pilot school IPM coordinators. Impact: Information from this objective will be used to refine the calculator functions, improve usability and increase the likelihood of it being used by others. 2. Test a new model of school IPM diffusion by educating core group of school IPM opinion leaders from participating states in IPM principles and use of the IPM Cost Calculator. Opinion leaders and innovators from school districts in each of the participating states will be identified and invited to an IPM workshop hosted by our project collaborating agencies. Workshop training will cover the theory and practice of IPM for schools, training in installation and use of the IPM Cost Calculator, and suggestions for using the calculator during the budget planning process. Impact: The interstate workshops will train a core group of opinion leaders who can be enlisted to assist with ongoing dissemination of IPM technologies, including the IPM Cost Calculator. In addition, the workshops will serve as a forum where new IPM teaching resources can be shared with other state IPM educators (i.e., as collaborators share training techniques and observe teaching methods) using a train the- trainer approach. 3. Assess and compare understanding and level of adoption of the IPM concept among participating states. Evaluations will be used to question Year One IPM coordinators and Year Two workshop participants about their districts current level of IPM adoption, pre- and post-training understanding and perceptions of IPM, and current level of adoption of IPM. Impact: This activity will provide impact data to assess the utility of the training workshops and learn more about regional perspectives concerning IPM. Such knowledge can be used to design more effective training materials and methods.

Final Report:

Results From report submitted by the PI to USDA CRIS report system PROGRESS: 2007/09 TO 2010/08 OUTPUTS: Eight objectives were listed in our project proposal. While significant progress was made on the core objectives of the project (to refine, validate and bring online the original version [V.1] of the IPM budget calculator), many of the impact objectives remain unachieved. This is mostly due to the need to largely re-program the original calculator, and the greater-than-anticipated programming challenges to meet our project standards and requirements. Following are some of our achieved objectives: OBJ 1. Improve calibration of the calculator pest risk function. In YR1 of the project (2007) the project team traveled to schools in Maine, Florida, Alabama and California collecting data for the early version of the calculator (V.1). Short interviews were conducted with key upper administrators to gain further insight into school budget writing and IPM practices. Data from these school visits were used to calibrate the calculator by comparing calculator ratings of schools to subjective ratings by experienced (expert) members of the project team. Based on modest, but unsatisfactory, correlations between the calculator and expert ratings, a decision was made to modify the model on which the calculator was based, and re-program the online calculator model (V.2). The programming process proved more difficult and sophisticated than initially envisioned, and consumed most of the final two years of the [extended] project. Much of the difficulty centered on developing a customizable questionnaire and administrative portal to the site. OBJ 2. Gather additional information on default costs for budgeting. Under the newly designed model, the decision to include default budget costs was rejected in favor of a re-envisioning of the calculator's purpose. The new calculator model has been designed to help schools assess their overall pest risk and determine what school building features contribute most to overall risk. The budgeting component of the model proved too costly to implement at this time and has been designated for inclusion in V.3 of the calculator. OBJ 3. Develop a national online database of calculator users. In YR3 of the project the calculator and database was completed. It is now available online at http://ipmcalculator.com. The calculator is currently collecting data from schools in Texas and nationally; however additional time is required to collect a truly useful national database of calculator users. OBJ 8. Assess and compare understanding and level of adoption of the IPM concept among participating states. In 2009 team members conducted follow-up calculator training in all project states. A total of 158 school IPM staff were trained in the calculator and given pre- or pre/post assessments of their IPM understanding. 69% of the trainees described themselves as familiar or very familiar with IPM. Information about the project was disseminated through two paper presentations (6th International IPM Symposium, March 2009. Portland, OR; and 2008 National Conference on Urban Entomology, Tulsa, OK...see publications.). PARTICIPANTS: M. E. Merchant, B. Bennett, and J. A. Hurley are the project coordinators, Texas AgriLife Extension Service; Kathy Murray, Maine Department of Agriculture; Belinda Messenger, California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation; Lawrence Graham, Auburn University; Faith Oi and Rebecca Baldwin, University of Florida Cooperative Extension. Collaborating school districts included Maine: Portland Public Schools; Richmond Schools; Waterville Schools. Alabama: Sylacauga City Schools, Shelby County Schools, Auburn City Schools. Florida: Brevard County Schools, Manatee County Schools. California: Kern Union High School District, Palo Alto Unified School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District. Texas: West Oso ISD, Arlington ISD, Plano ISD, Kerrville ISD. TARGET AUDIENCES: School pest management coordinators and maintenance directors. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: The project was partly modified from its original intent to provide a budget writing tool for schools. The calculator now functions principally as a risk estimator and heuristic training tool to help schools assess building features that need improvement in order to reduce pest risk at their campus. Part of the reason for the modification was due to the cost and difficulty encountered by our contractor in achieving this aspect of the calculator, as well as the impracticality of developing realistic default costs for building maintenance improvements. The calculator has been programmed in such a way that a budget writing tool (without default costs) can be added at a later date. We feel that the final calculator project is actually an improvement over the initial proposed project. IMPACT: 2007/09 TO 2010/08 Outcomes and measurable impacts of the project to date have been limited. Our project team is continuing to recruit school districts to utilize the online calculator. As this occurs, the calculator will deliver entered data to a central database that can be analyzed and results reported. The usefulness of the calculator includes its ability to (1) collect demographic data about school districts and IPM budgets nationally, (2) collect information about school building features that contribute to pest risks in schools and (3) its usefulness as a heuristic (teaching) tool to help school maintenance professionals understand how features of building maintenance contribute to pest risk in a school. Information about the project. A more complete report will be delivered to the Southern IPM Center. PUBLICATIONS (not previously reported): 2007/09 TO 2010/08 Michael E. Merchant, Blake Bennett, Janet A. Hurley, Kathy Murray, Belinda Messenger, Lawrence Graham, Faith Oi, and Rebecca Baldwin. 2008. New tool to help schools calculate the costs of IPM. Proc. Nat. Conf. Urban Entomology, May 20, 2008. Tulsa, OK.

Outcomes N/A

Impacts From report submitted by the PI to USDA CRIS report system Outcomes and measurable impacts of the project to date have been limited. Our project team is continuing to recruit school districts to utilize the online calculator. As this occurs, the calculator will deliver entered data to a central database that can be analyzed and results reported. The usefulness of the calculator includes its ability to (1) collect demographic data about school districts and IPM budgets nationally, (2) collect information about school building features that contribute to pest risks in schools and (3) its usefulness as a heuristic (teaching) tool to help school maintenance professionals understand how features of building maintenance contribute to pest risk in a school. Information about the project. A more complete report will be delivered to the Southern IPM Center.

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