School WASH Facilities: Operations and Maintenance Guidelines

This manual addresses the key O&M tasks necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of school WASHE services and the longevity of related hardware. It covers these key aspects of O&M and includes related tools:

• Once works are done, DEBS hands them over to the schools with careful O&M guidance. A sample O&M letter from DEBS to schools is included (see Appendix 1, Sample WASHE Letter).
• O&M is a daily school-wide activity that includes many players and tasks. The school O&M checklist can help schools to keep daily O&M tasks scheduled and organized (see Appendix 2, Daily WASHE Maintenance Checklist).
• School WASHE O&M involves multiple stakeholders and is successful when everyone knows and plays their role. This manual includes a list of key stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities, as well as contact information for key stakeholders (see Appendix 3, WASHE Roles and Responsibilities).
• This manual also provides worksheets for planning, budgeting, and tracking daily activities, and a schedule of parts prices for easy reference (see Appendix 4, Schedule of Prices for Parts Replacement). 

Though each school may have a slightly different system for O&M, we hope this manual will make that process easier and show that maintaining school WASHE is far easier than dealing with the consequences of not maintaining it.