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AACSE School Environmental Hazard Survey Results: Dismal Report Card for Schools
American Association of Classified School Employees School Environmental Hazard Survey Results, March, 2006
HEALTHY SCHOOLS—DOES YOURS MAKE THE GRADE?
http://www.aacse.org/report_card_results.pdf
A healthy, high-performing school has an environment conducive to teaching and learning. However, many schools are not healthy because of poor indoor air quality, insufficient custodial and maintenance staff, or slow responses to health and safety problems. These are some of the issues that have prompted the American Association of Classified School Employees (AACSE) to create a Healthy High-Performing Schools Report Card to help classified school employees determine the health of their buildings. The report card is part of the AACSE legislative program to win support for federal legislation to make schools safe places to learn and work.
The new AACSE report card asks questions that include: How is the air in your building? Does your school have sufficient custodial and maintenance staff to properly maintain your building? Is there a complaint and investigation procedure in your school that is timely and responsive to parent and staff heath and safety concerns? Each question receives a grade from A: Close to ideal to F: Totally inadequate or nonexistent. These grades are averaged to produce a final grade that indicates the health of the school.
Print out your report card and see if your school makes the grade. Locals may want to have report cards sent to them and then collectively fax them to Eric Losey at 800/879-4597 or mail them to Eric Losey, AACSE Intern, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington D.C., 20001. AACSE would like report cards returned by Wednesday, March 15, to share the results with congressional staff and the media during its legislative conference in Washington, D.C., in late March.
If you have any questions about the report card, please call Eric Losey at 800/238-1133, ext. 3725
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PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2006
Contact: Tom Hogan or Karen Sierpina
F/S Capitol Consulting
(202) 434-8918
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PANEL SOUNDS ALARM ON ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH HAZARDS IN SCHOOLS
http://www.aacse.org/press_release_3_27_06.pdf
Dismal Report Card Results Highlight Need for Action
WASHINGTON, D.C. School programs to prevent indoor pollutants received an average
grade of C-, underscoring the growing problem of mold and other health hazards that impede
student learning, according to preliminary findings released today by the American Association
of Classified School Employees (AACSE).
Mold and other common pollutants are stealth enemies in schools, said Dr. Jacqueline
Moline, director of the New York-New Jersey NIOSH Education and Research Center at New
York's Mount Sinai Hospital, speaking on a panel of health, education and policy experts
convened by the AACSE. There's a documented link between poor indoor air quality and
student health and learning, including increased asthma and absenteeism rates. It's a problem that
requires immediate attention.
AACSE's Healthy High-Performing Schools Report Card forms are being distributed
nationwide to assess the quality of schools' indoor environment maintenance practices. So far,
more than 350 school representatives have completed the report card, with alarming results.
While the overall average grade is C-, certain key items such as mold prevention and control get
even poorer marks.
Our report card points to the urgent need for proactive school building construction and
maintenance, said Gary Rychard, president of the AACSE. “Custodial and maintenance staff
are doing the best job they can, given the resources and training provided. But they need support.
The fact is, well-planned maintenance programs not only improve the health of students and
staff; they also save money in the long run.
The report card results, Rychard noted, also are consistent with findings from a U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study published earlier this year. According to that
study, less than half of all schools report having indoor air quality (IAQ) management programs
in place, such as EPA's Tools for Schools program. Further, many of these programs lack critical
elements, such as an HVAC system that provides adequate control of temperature, humidity and
outdoor air ventilation.
While panelists praised EPA's voluntary Tools for Schools program as a good first step in
encouraging schools to improve indoor environments, they urged federal policymakers and
officials to assume a larger leadership role.
Darryl Alexander, health and safety program director at the American Federation of
Teachers, suggested that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
be granted new authority to monitor environmental health conditions for students. NIOSH is a
federal agency charged with evaluating and improving workplace conditions for adults, yet it has
no mandate to intervene on behalf of children.
"NIOSH is already in many schools investigating the impact of environmental conditions
on school staff, but not on children, even though kids are generally more susceptible to indoor
pollutants," said Alexander. "This makes no sense, and it raises the question of who's looking
out for the kids.
Other federal actions the panel suggested include setting uniform, research-
based standards for IAQ management; creating a national clearinghouse for best
practices; and establishing IAQ incentive programs for schools. The AACSE will elaborate on
these recommendations at a legislative briefing on Capitol Hill later in the day.
The AACSE encourages schools to complete their own Healthy, High-Performing
Schools Report Cards. Download the form at http://www.aacse.org/report_card.pdf.
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The AACSE and its affiliates represent more than 300,000 teacher assistants, office clerical,
custodial staff, food service workers, bus drivers, secretaries, special education assistants,
warehouse technicians, data processing assistants, and other support staff in forty-one states.
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