...children need, first and foremost, to be safe.

Writing about visiting his granddaughter on her first day of kindergarten, Dr. Charles Patterson reflects "on the trust placed in all of us as educators.

... Just as Lauren is precious to our family, millions of the world's children are precious to their families and friends. Those adults are depending on us, as educators, to treat their children with respect, care, and concern, just as we want other adults to show kindness to the children we love so deeply.  Educators should never lose this perspective… children and their well-being as the focus of all we do."   (“Message from the President” in Education Update, ASCD, 1995.)

In an interview Dr. Patterson said that he was well aware of the New London School Disaster. 

“It is the most terrible example of the price to be paid when adults forget that children need, first and foremost, to be safe.  Protecting them from hazards is a primary duty. It is an area that urgently needs an infusion of advocacy.”

-- Dr. Charles Patterson is a former school superintendent of Killeen Independent School District (Texas) and former president of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).

Originally posted March 4, 2012

  

The Lives Unlived in Newtown
   By Sara Mosle, NYTIMES Magazine

On a country highway in the tiny town of New London, Tex., sits a small tea shop and a museum that houses the collective grief of a community that lost its children. On the afternoon of March 18, 1937, the London Consolidated School exploded a few minutes before classes were to be dismissed. An odorless cloud of natural gas had leaked from a faulty heating system into the building’s unventilated basement and ignited, most likely from a spark from the school’s shop class.

According to witnesses, the school appeared to blast off its foundation and hover in the air before collapsing again, generating clouds of ash and debris that plowed across the schoolyard. Scores of mothers, who had been attending a P.T.A. meeting in the nearby wood gymnasium, staggered out into a blizzard of whirling papers and pulverized mortar. When the dust settled, approximately 300 people were dead, nearly all of them children...

Read the article: The Lives Unlived in Newtown

...In the months before the 1937 explosion, state fire regulators tried to raise the alarm about the perils of natural gas, but it took the death of schoolchildren to impel politicians to act. Within days of the disaster, Texas legislators went into emergency session to promote the addition of a “malodorant” to natural gas, which has since saved countless lives.
 

New photos from the New London school disaster  Houston Chronicle
After the tragic events of that day, the Texas Legislature passed a law ... Search-and-recovery scene following New London school explosion, March 1937...

An American Holocaust: The Story of Lataine's Ring by Kerry L. Barger

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/KerryBarger

A new book -- in anticipation of the 75th anniversary of the March 18 1937 Texas School Explosion.  

Author's Website 

"Mr. Barger's Kindle books are always free to Amazon Prime members and will be offered free of charge to everyone on Feb. 20th at http://www.amazon.com/American-Holocaust-Story-Lataines-ebook/dp/B005HMO7ZK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2 . You don't need a Kindle to read Kindle e-books on your computer, iPod, or Smart Phone. Mr. Barger will be happy to send you a free download of any of his books for the asking. Simply contact him through the link provided in his Author's Website."

Guidance and Tools for Schools

Safeguard Against Chemicals in Your School: EPA’s Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign (SC3)

From school maintenance closets to high school chemistry labs to vocational school classrooms, schools house a variety of chemicals. These chemicals can have many useful applications: they help keep school areas clean, demonstrate chemistry lessons and teach students new mechanical skills. But when these chemicals are mismanaged, they can put students and school staff at risk from spills, fires and other accidental exposures — incidents that may result in lost school days and require millions of dollars to mitigate.

The Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign (SC3) gives K-12 schools the guidance and tools they need to responsibly manage chemicals, thus reducing the risks and hazards posed by mismanagement. The goals of SC3 are to bring together administrators, teachers, maintenance staff...

 

Read more

safety measures can’t be overlooked

“The tragedy emphasized that safety measures can’t be overlooked in the handling of petroleum and its products,” Chapman said. “It was after this tragedy that a scent was added to the odorless natural gas.”

Read more at Suite101: Marilyn Jones, Kilgore, Texas: From the Great Depression to Oil Boomtown http://texas-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/kilgore-texas#ixzz0hDjAbypc

I have seen how fast terrible things can happen

Jacksonville resident recalls New London explosion | Texas-Fire.com March 18, 2010, marked the 73rd anniversary of the tragic New London School explosion that happened so close to home all those years ago, the memory of which is still etched in the minds of the few that survived and in the minds of the ... Texas-Fire.com - http://www.texas-fire.com/

Odorization: simply a matter of safety

It has been almost seventy years since a tragic natural gas explosion occurred at a school building in New London, TX. This event opened the eyes of the community, the emerging natural gas industry, and the entire world.

Early in 1937, the New London school board, in order to save money, cancelled their natural gas contract. Instead, plumbers installed a tap into a residual gas line associated with oil production. This practice, while not explicitly authorized by local oil companies, was widespread in the area. The natural gas extracted with the oil was seen as a waste product and thus was flared off.

Natural gas, which is odorless and therefore undetectable to the human nose, had been leaking from the connection to the residual line. The gas had built up inside an enclosed crawlspace that ran the entire length of the school building. Students had been complaining of headaches for some time, but little attention was paid. 

For more go to Odorization: simply a matter of safety. (natural gas)(Brief article).  Pipeline & Gas Journal 233.11 (Nov 2006): p50(1).  http://www.oildompublishing.com/PGJ/pgjarchive/Nov06/Ordorization.pdf

The Origin of the Texas Engineering Practice Act

A Message from the Chairman of the Board by Govind Nadkarni, P.E

    As Chairman of the Board of Professional Engineers on the 70th anniversary of its creation, I wanted to find out more of the circumstances surrounding the Board's formation. I heard that a reunion and memorial service were to be held in New London, Texas, this year, honoring the survivors and remembering the loss of more than 300 students and teachers who died in the school explosion on March 18, 1937.

   This tragedy was the event that led to the Engineering Practice Act in Texas. I asked Executive Director Dale Beebe Farrow to join me in this commemoration. It was indeed an honor and an education for us to attend the memorial service and meet several of the survivors and others affected by the explosion. Each had a story to tell of the catastrophic event.  Read more: Texas Board of Professional Engineers Newsletter, Summer, 2007, Pg. 2