NSSEA - Resources: Standards & Guidelines

Safety Standard/Certification Development

NSF International and the National School Supply and Equipment Association (NSSEA) are developing a standard for K-12 school equipment and supplies. The standard will be the first comprehensive standard to certify health, safety and environmental aspects of products and equipment used in an educational setting. There are currently no programs that evaluate school equipment and products on a comprehensive basis.

The November 2010 School Equipment Show provided the opportunity for the first face to face stakeholder meetings for the new NSF/NSSEA 380 standards and certification development committees. The NSF/NSSEA 380 standard is intended to ensure product safety and regulatory compliance across the major product sectors of the NSSEA membership. The standard is being developed in partnership with NSF International, an ANSI-accredited standards developer. This open, transparent standards development process helps to ensure that the standard will be developed with balanced input from stakeholders such as product manufacturers, product specifiers, the educational community, and the regulatory community.

Partnership with GREENGUARD Environmental Institute

The GREENGUARD Environmental Institute and the National School Supply and Equipment Association (NSSEA) announced today that they have formed a strategic partnership to promote the manufacture and third-party certification of sustainable, low-emitting products for educational facilities.

"Our number one goal in teaming up with NSSEA is to ensure the health, wellness, and safety of students, faculty, and staff in America’s schools," says Dr. Marilyn Black, founder of the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute. "We are excited to partner with NSSEA—the leader in the educational products marketplace—to drive positive change in the industry and create healthier products for healthier schools across the nation."

Product Information Template Adopted as Industry Standard

The NSSEA Business Technology Committee has developed and released an industry product information template for use by suppliers and dealers in the school market. The template, endorsed by the NSSEA Board of Directors and Retail Store Council, is available in an Excel format. It includes standard data fields for vendor information, product dimensions, UPC and or ISBN codes, minimum orders, delivery methods, MSDS requirements, safety criteria, recycled material specifications, among others, and can be adapted for any products currently being sold.

The NSSEA leadership is supporting a standard format to promote efficiencies in order entry, decrease the redundancies in order entry, reduce transactional costs, and ease difficulties associated with the transfer of product data for catalogs and websites.

"Our goal is to move the industry toward a total adoption of electronic commerce in order to automate business processes and reduce the amount of rekeying of data," explains Michael Green, one of the key members working to support the adoption of the template in the school market. "Only with the support of both dealers and suppliers, will we be able to effectively compete with other channels."

Download the Template (.xls)

The Business Technology Committee will be sponsoring a session at Ed Expo on how to improve operations through automation. Karl Perron, CEO of Transactiv and members of the Committee will be on hand to share ways they have reduced costs, streamlined operations, and increased revenue though IT investments, and to explain how adopting standards such as the NSSEA Product Template can increase efficiencies. Read more.

Additional Standards & Guidelines

NSSEA assists the industry in providing standards for data processing and order entry. In this section you will find the latest on the changeover to ISBN-13, guidelines on the placement and use of bar coding, catalog technology guidelines, and a sample of the copyright infringement letter. In addition, you can access the educational industry product template developed by the NSSEA Business Technology Committee to promote a standard format to improve efficiencies in order entry and reduce transactional costs.

Image Standards

NSSEA has endorsed the adoption of image specifications for both print and Web. The specifications were developed and approved by the Business Technology Committee in May 2009. Standard images allow for the consistent transfer of information within and between databases in a compatible format.

Bar Coding

The National School Supply and Equipment Association recommends to its members, and to the entire school market, the adoption and compliance of the Universal Product Code and EAN Code as the uniform systems of choice for this market.

Catalog Guidelines

NSSEA recommends to its members, and to the entire school market, the adoption and compliance of the following hardware and software for digital file transfers of product images and catalog pages between numbers.

Should you encounter a case of copyright infringement, the NSSEA has provided an example of a Cease and Desist Letter.