NEW EPA HEALTHY SCHOOL GUIDELINES & WEBINARS

EPA is pleased to announce the release of Voluntary Guidelines for States: Development and Implementation of a School Environmental Health Program. The guidelines were mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and were developed in consultation with other federal agencies, states, school officials, and non-profit organizations.

School environments play an important role in the health and academic success of children. Children spend 90% of their time indoors and much of that time is spent in school. Unhealthy school environments can affect children’s health, attendance, concentration, and performance, as well as lead to expensive, time-consuming cleanup and remediation activities.

These voluntary guidelines recommend six steps states can take to build or enhance a school environmental health program. The guidelines also include a model K-12 school environmental health program as a resource that states can customize and share with schools and school districts to help them establish, or enhance an existing, school environmental health program. The model program incorporates EPA’s unique school programs such as Tools for Schools, Healthy School Environments Assessment Tool (Healthy SEAT), ENERGY Star for K-12 Schools and others, to help schools and school districts begin or enhance a comprehensive school environmental health program.

To complement the guidelines release, OCHP will be hosting two webinars in October and November, respectively. 
 
(1) The first webinar, Why Environmental Health Matters in Schools, will be held on October 17^th from 2:00-3:00pm EST. The webinar will feature Larry K. Lowry, PhD, Director of the Southwest Center for Pediatric Environmental Health (SWCPEH) and Director of Graduate Programs in Environmental Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, who will discuss the critical link between students and their environment and how it can affect their performance in school.
 
(2) The second webinar, Integrated School Health Tools for Districts, will be held on Wednesday November 7^th from 2:00-3:00pm EST. This webinar will discuss how schools and school districts can create healthy environments for students by implementing a comprehensive, sustainable environmental health program. The webinar will feature highlights, tips, and strategies from established state programs. 
 
You can register for both webinars at: https://esbuildings.webex.com/mw0306ld/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=esbuildings
 
To learn more about the guidelines, please visit our website at www.epa.gov/schools.

 Pride of Purpose 
from IAQTfSConnector@cadmusgroup.com

“It was astonishing to see how much prouder the IAQ team members became of the work they do each day once they understood the connections between IAQ and health and the role they can play in academic achievement.”  – Stacy Murphy, U.S. EPA Region 6

Dear School Leader,

Stacy Murphy

I’m excited to share the story of a rural school district in Oklahoma that has taken steps to identify its challenges and strive for growth and success using the IAQ Tools for Schools guidance. Ponca City Public Schools’ journey to success is one I believe school districts across the country can emulate.

As a 2011 Design Challenge School District, Ponca City attended the 2011 IAQ Tools for Schools National Symposium in Washington, D.C., ready to soak up as much technical information, guidance and mentorship from other school districts as possible. Working with other Symposium participants, the district began to pinpoint improvements needed to create a comprehensive IAQ management program, and throughout this process, one specific challenge rose to the surface. It became clear to the Ponca City staff that a disconnect existed in the district’s ability to communicate IAQ issues throughout the school community.

Read full article by Stacy Murphy here: LINK

Pictured above: Ponca City School District representatives working to identify and solve the district’s IAQ challenges.

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

Webinar: School Chemical Cleanout Sept 15

Webinar: Prevent Air Pollution at the Source: School Chemical Cleanout
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT

Keep your school safe and free from hazardous chemicals. Chemical mismanagement can lead to dangerous exposures and risks - jeopardizing the safety of students and staff by polluting the air. Join experts from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign and Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Program, as well as the representatives from school  district's and private industry, as they explain effective methods to safely manage chemicals that are used in schools every day

2007 Healthy Schools Hero
Diane Ethier, Pomfret Center, Connecticut
 

Every year to mark the anniversary of the March 18, 1937 Texas School Explosion, I salute a Healthy Schools Hero whose inspirational leadership protects children and teachers from school hazards and unhealthy school conditions.

A Cautionary Tale

On March 18, 1937, in the small oil-rich town of New London, Texas, a series of false economies and efforts to save cut costs in the new school's heating system led to a gas explosion that killed 319 students, teachers and visitors while in the supposed safe haven of a public school.

Today, there is a website (http://www.newlondonschool.org) and a museum dedicated to remembering the "lost generation" and educating future generations about the tragedy and its lessons.  The story serves as a cautionary tale about the failure to prioritize safety and illustrates how painful it is to live with such devastating loss when opportunities to prevent them were overlooked or ignored.  

After the school explosion, laws were passed to require a warning odor in natural gas but other recommendations have yet to be implemented in most 21st century schools -- to hire technically trained administrators for modern school systems, to conduct more rigid inspections and more widespread public education, and to adopt a comprehensive, rational safety code.

Ethier Breaks the Silence

Today, Diane Ethier is a Healthy School Hero because she is an environmental health resource and mentor to hundreds of people. In a variety of roles, she helps others to break the silence about school hazards and to overcome the pervasive denial and indifference about school conditions that that lead to serious illness in schools.  Her courage, her skill as a communicator, and her persistance are bringing the Lessons of the 1937 Texas School Explosion to school systems in her state and far beyond.

Ethier is a retired Calculus and Algebra Teacher who taught for 30 years. She knows from personal experience how school officials typically overlook opportunities to take action when conditions in schools make people sick. 

Now, Ethier is a Training Specialist for Connecticut's US EPA IAQ Tools for Schools program (TfS), a comprehensive toolkit that can help schools prevent and correct indoor air quality problems. She educates school-based environmental health teams to be responsible for ongoing problem identification and hazard prevention and control. 

To date, Ethier has done sixty trainings including IAQ Basics, School Walkthroughs, Refresher and Custodian Programs for personnel from 200 school districts. Ethier has also presented on "Indoor Air Quality in Schools" at both Connecticut Education Association and National Education Association Conferences.  
 

Ethier is also Acting President of the Connecticut Foundation for Environmentally Safe Schools (ConnFESS) , a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting policies, practices and resources that protect school occupants from environmental health hazards. She is also a part time Organizer for the Connecticut Education Association. She attends the NIH-NHLBI National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) as a voice for occupational and environmental health on behalf of the National Education Association.
 

ConFESS is the VOICE for Students and Employees

In the past five years, ConFESS is widely acknowledged to be the voice for the growing number of students and school employees who are sick because of polluted school air.  ConFESS is also a leader of a growing state and national network of concerned citizens committed to making health and safety a priority when schools are sited, designed, built, maintained and renovated. 

During National Healthy Schools Day in 2006, ConnFESS promoted an Advocacy Checklist to help parents and school staff evaluate how effectively a school is adopting and implementing its IAQ program, mandated by the new Connecticut Law.

For more information on ConnFESS activities go to http://pollutionfreeschools.org/ 

Diane's Story

Diane Ethier was teaching calculus and algebra in a wing of a high school with a leaking roof, moldy carpets, broken ventilation equipment and poor maintenance.  One press report called it a monument to "budget cuts and deferred maintenance."  It took Ethier three years to figure out it was the building making her sick.  

Finally, after comparing symptoms and location and timing patterns with a fellow teacher who had taught in the same wing of the building, she recognized her symptoms as a mold allergy.  Diane's physicians confirmed that her symptoms were related to conditions in the high school.  Although her colleagues and students were also having symptoms, they feared complaining or did not understand the connection between the building and their illness.  And, her union officials cautioned her not to open her mouth, warning her "You'll get transferred." 

Ethier recognized the need to educate others.  Ethier went to her Superintendent to inform him. However, as in too many other schools, the results of "air testing "showed nothing was wrong."  School officials told her the problem was "all in her head."  

In 1998, her physician Dr. Eileen Storey was doing a National Science Foundation Study on the association between respiratory disease and indoor environments. Her special interest is to develop exposure assessment tools that help characterize indoor risk factors.

When the town selectman turned down Dr. Storey's offer to evaluate the high school for free, Ethier decided she was "not going to take it anymore."  She turned anger into action. Ethier conducted a teacher's health survey.  60% of the teachers reported that they were affected by poor IAQ in the building but only two teachers were willing to say it publicly.   

Turning Pain Into Purpose

Ethier became an advocate for the US EPA IAQ TfS Program. It took persistence and courage. In fact, it took three years plus a change in leadership (a new superintendent, new selectman, and a new union structure) to get her school to adopt the IAQ TfS program. 

The TfS audit system identified serious problems – mold and high levels of carbon dioxide.  As a result, the school made some improvements -- the roof was repaired, carpets were removed from the library and hallways, and some unit ventilators were cleaned.  Maintenance staff stopped covering up problems by spray-painting stained ceiling tiles.

Ethier became the school TfS program coordinator and then the school district coordinator.  However, the more time Ethier spent in the school, the sicker she got.

In 2002, Ethier went on sick leave for occupational lung disease. Dr. Storey specified the repairs and maintenance improvements that were conditions for Diane's return to school. However, the school refused to make the changes because the town was soon to build new high school.  Thus, people continued to occupy the old sick building for two more years.  Eventually, four staff members filed Worker's Comp claims, three were permanently removed from the building by their physicians, and another three chose to retire. While Ethier was out, the TfS program flagged. (The new high school opened for occupancy on September 2005. It already has a leaky roof, mold in air ducts, and other problems.  Ethier knows that "If we'd had Tools for Schools in place for the past ten years, none of this would have happened.") 

In 2001, Ethier joined and eventually became a leader of the statewide grassroots group, Connecticut Foundation for Environmentally Safe Schools (ConnFESS), formerly known as the Canary Committee.  She worked to create legislation to provide a systematic evaluation and inventory of conditions and maintenance practices in schools and to promote policies and resources that protect children and school personnel.     

In December 2003 Diane took early retirement. She was down, but not out. Ethier continued to work to break the silence and to educate her fellow teachers, union members, and legislators about the need for standards for healthy schools. She presented at professional conferences and testified many times before the Connecticut General Assembly on school environmental health issues.  Today, Ethier's health depends on avoiding buildings with poor ventilation, damp moldy areas and fragrances.

The need for more champions

According to the report by Environment & Human Health, Inc., A Survey of Asthma Prevalence In Elementary School Children (2003)  there is a high incidence of asthma in Connecticut's school children and teaching is the most common occupation associated with the development of work-related asthma.  The report quotes surveillance studies of occupational asthma by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) that blamed indoor air pollutants as the top two causes of work-related asthma.  (The actual rate is unknown because most cases are not recognized and reported. Tracking work-related asthma and working conditions depends on physicians recognizing and reporting work-related asthma to state public health agencies.) 

Advocacy Works

In 2003 the Connecticut Indoor Air Quality Bill for Schools passed by a 35 –1 margin in the Connecticut Senate and a 150-1 vote in the Connecticut House of Representatives.  The Connecticut IAQ School Law states that all school districts must have a program in place to address indoor air in schools by July 2003. The TFS program fulfills that requirement. The text of the law, P.A. 03-220, can be found at http://www.cga.gov.

Kenny Foscue, Health Educator for the Connecticut Department of Public Health and leader of the Connecticut School Indoor Environment Resource Team, calls Ethier "a catalyst."  After inviting Ethier to present at several Tools for Schools trainings, Foscue asked Ethier to become a trainer herself. 

Today, the Connecticut School Indoor Environment Resource Team has 24 coalition partners dedicated to training schools to implement the TfS program. ConnFESS is one of the coalition partners.  Ethier's dream is to see every state with enough funding to do more than just training but to fund follow up training and support for school TfS teams, to track school TfS implementation, and to ensure enforcement of all school environmental health laws.

Lessons Learned

Ethier knows that it is still too rare to find a school where anyone has primary responsibility to protect children and teachers from environmental hazards or to enforce public health, chemical hygiene, occupational health and safety, and occupancy standards.  Every school needs a champion, someone who is a driving force to keep environmental health programs alive and to prioritize health and safety in schools. 

Most significantly, Ethier shows how grassroots organizations, professional associations and state and federal agencies can be allies that enable parents, teachers and school officials to take leadership for school safety.  Most significantly, Ethier shows how grassroots organizations, professional associations and state and federal agencies can be allies that enable parents, teachers and school officials to speak up and take leadership for school safety. 

For more on the US EPA IAQ TfS program, current research on indoor air quality on student performance and asthma, mold, pest management, and chemical cleanout campaigns, go to www.epa.gov/iaq and National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities http://www.ncef.org .

Countdown to Healthy Schools Day April 30, 2007.  Find Healthy School Day activities and partners at Healthy Schools Network .  

Find additional information and suggestions on school programs and events to improve school safety and health security especially for students with asthma, allergies and other environmentally triggered conditions at www.healthy-kid.info .

Healthy Schools Heroes 2006  
Westborough (MA) parent Kathy King 
School Committee member Bruce Tretter

Every year to mark the anniversary of the March 18, 1937 Texas School Explosion, I salute Indoor Air Quality Heroes whose inspirational leadership protects children from school hazards and unhealthy school conditions. As many safety champions know, it often takes enormous persistence and courage to take leadership for safety in schools and overcome indifference to a wide range of health and safety problems.

My 2006 Healthy Schools Heroes are Westborough (MA) School Committee member Bruce Tretter and parent Kathy King. Tretter and King have transformed the Westborough Public Schools into a unique model of district-wide responsibility, responsiveness and commitment to health and safety.

Tretter and King make safety and health a high priority, something that was overlooked when the burgeoning oil-rich East Texas boomtown built its new state-of-the-art school.

Today, 69 years since the Texas School Explosion, its story should be part of our national legacy. Let's make March 18 a national day dedicated to bringing the "Lessons of the 1937 Texas School Explosion" to our nation's schools and celebrating the heroes whose leadership saves children's lives.

BEYOND TOOLS FOR SCHOOLS

Bruce Tretter calls Westborough's successful process, "Beyond Tools for Schools" because of its highly detailed IAQ Program Manual and the high level of support from school staff. The IAQ Program Manual is available online at no cost at www.westborough.org.

GETTING STARTED

The small Massachusetts community has come a long way.

Kathy King is the mother of Kellianne who suffered headaches, sinus infections, chest pains and seizures that were linked to a variety of indoor air quality problems and chemicals in her school. Once King realized the school was the source of Kellianne's symptoms, she spoke up early and persistently for the children of Westborough, confronting years of official denial and resistance.

King and another parent, Nancy Meany, a nurse, presented the school committee with over 500 signatures they had collected from parents and other community members, including senior citizens, to show support for adopting the US EPA IAQ Tools for Schools program.

Bruce Tretter was a relative newcomer to Westborough and had never heard of the term "IAQ" when the Hastings Elementary Schools was suddenly closed because of wide-spread upper respiratory symptoms among students and staff.

Later, when he heard Kathy King testify about her daughter's severe illness related to the Hasting's poor indoor air quality, he remembers thinking she was crazy. Finally, Tretter realized that she was making a lot of sense and they became allies. When Bruce saw that the school administration was slow to make changes, he got more involved.

Tretter served on the school council for two years (2000 and 2001) and then was elected to the Westborough School Committee in 2001. He pledged to improve school indoor air quality and specifically, to work on a district-wide monitoring program for the budget as well as for facilities. Tretter became and still is chair of the district's IAQ committee that has evolved into a comprehensive Facilities Committee.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A CHILD

"Bruce has been a very important part of our village," says King. "Bruce saw the urgent need for change in the way Westborough managed its buildings and the way the administration communicated. He recognized that the countless health complaints of staff and students were valid and needed to be addressed properly."

"After finding out the facts about our schools' extensive IAQ problems and the stonewalling for over a decade, Bruce ran for school committee. Bruce took the IAQ issue to the max. He was not satisfied to stop when the minimum requirements of an IAQ team were met. He continuously looked for ways to make the teams more effective."

"The school children and staff now have the benefit of many watchful people in the village. They have site-based teams and a central team watching, inspecting, reporting, and fixing IAQ problems before they become health issues. These teams work very well with the administration, another very important partner in the village."

King's continued input on Westborough's Facility Committee and her ability to work with the media to promote Westborough's turnaround will inspire many others to speak up for changes in school design, operations and maintenance on behalf of children.

THE WESTBOROUGH MODEL

In the beginning Bruce Tretter and Kathy King looked far and wide for a school that had an authentic functioning model of the US EPA IAQ Tools for Schools program, but neither US EPA, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, nor any of the healthy schools advocacy groups could provide one.

So, as part of Westborough's nascent Indoor Air Quality team, King and Tretter assembled a district-wide committee, including representatives from the state teachers' union. They set out to create a plan appropriate for all six of their district's schools and also readily adaptable by any school district in the nation.

The IAQ team sought input from the school staff and administration. The Massachusetts Teacher Association's training emphasized that the program would benefit everyone in all of the school buildings. In 2001-2002, the MTA also contributed their lawyer, Sarah Gibson, who helped make the program as comprehensive as it is today.

After a year of drafting and editing, the committee had a district IAQ manual complete with detailed building checklists, schedules and timelines for completing the checklists, building inspections, detailed responsibilities for follow-up and protocols for follow-up reports.

Tretter describes the program's first year as "slow going" because they didn't have a template or model to learn form. However, the process improved, especially with the interest and cooperation of the superintendent and the new school nurse.

IAQ IS A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

Today, everyone in the Westborough School community shares a high sense of responsibility for making the IAQ plan work. The average classroom checklist completion rate across the district has been over 90% over the past three years. Rooms without a completed checklist are inspected by the individual school Health and Safety teams who conduct comprehensive inspections twice a year.

GOOD IAQ EQUALS GOOD PRESS

Eventually the Westborough School System's bad press changed to good press, especially after Westborough was recognized by the US EPA in 2003 for creating an IAQ program that featured district-wide awareness and a proactive approach.
In October 2005, Kathy and Kellianne King and the Westborough Schools exemplary turnaround were featured on ABC's Good Morning America, in the Boston Globe, and in other news stories around the country.

In the Good Morning America report: "Girl's Illness Traced to 'Toxic' School," Kellianne says, "I feel very proud to have a mom that would do that for her kid instead of just giving up...and not just for me but for other kids."

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

A significant feature of Westborough's process is continuous improvement. The Facility Committee works to improve the checklist procedure. At first, staff members were asked to fill out separate autumn and spring classroom checklists. 

Later, staff members were reissued their completed autumn checklist and asked to note any changes on a condensed spring checklist. This new procedure reinforces awareness of room conditions noted previously. It also allows for a more accurate comparison season to season and contributes to the sustained high rate of checklist completion.

Each school's checklists are used to create a report about facility conditions and maintenance at each school. Following a review of the checklists, the district facility committee does extensive walk-throughs. Instead of meeting only in the central administration building, the committee holds district meetings in each of the school buildings on a rotating basis. This allows the committee to see first hand the problems cited in the report. They also see how repairs are going, for example, the remediation of a water infiltration/plumbing problem in the recently constructed Mill Pond School.

There are also many examples of the school systems heightened responsiveness. Teachers fill out maintenance requests regularly. When diesel fumes from idling equipment in an attached garage space were getting into the school, the principal stopped it immediately. In the new K-3 school, the architect designed the room for the copy machine to vent fumes into the school hall. Now the school is going to relocate the machine to a more properly ventilated location.

KEYS TO SUCCESS

Tretter identifies three keys to IAQ success: persistence, awareness and communication.'

Persistence was required to bring all parties on board and to implement the plan and to keep improving it. Now everyone understands that continuous vigilance is required to ensure the system responds appropriately to practical operational needs as they arise.

Awareness: At first some staff members expressed con-erns that the IAQ plan was creating a program only to address problems at one school. However, staff learned that IAQ problems can arise in any building and that proper prevention and mitigation of problems relies on properly trained and prepared staff.

The program has proven its value in responding to indoor air quality problems at other schools, especially those undergoing construction and renovation projects. Although unforeseen at the outset, the awareness of IAQ solutions, especially the importance of building maintenance, has been especially appreciated as the district has budgetary constraints.

Communication: Problems are shared, not hushed up. From the beginning, the program depended on comprehensive, straightforward and open communication among all members of the school community.

Everyone knows that the future success of the program depends on maintaining good communication among the district facilities committee, each school's health and safety team and building staff, the school department and school committee. 

Communication maintains the benefits of the IAQ program even as committee members and school personnel change.

Implementation of Westborough's program has increased IAQ awareness so it is now a cornerstone of school and community culture. Westborough is a true model of success. Bruce Tretter is eager and willing to mentor other school districts.  

THERE IS A HERO IN YOUR AREA. 

It could be you!

Bring the Lessons of the 1937 Texas School Explosion to your school. In response to the growing number of accidents such as mercury spills and lab injuries, many states as well as the US EPA Schools Chemical Cleanout Campaign have created resources and programs to help schools conduct chemical clean-outs and to provide training to staff to implement the necessary chemical management programs. They can be allies and resources to anyone who takes leadership for school safety.

For other references and resources see What You Can Do online at www.healthy-kid.info. Find information and suggestions for school programs and events to improve school safety and security, plus links to national and state resources and model programs.

Let me know how it goes.
Ellie Goldberg, healthykids@rcn.com