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an article from the NEA Today teachers union magazine that describes Plainfield High School and more as dangers to teachers and students
News
Breaking the Mold on Air Quality
http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0111/news3.html
NEA members in Connecticut and across the U.S. attack indoor air quality problems through the EPA's Tools for Schools program.
Plainfield High School in rural northeastern Connecticut is an aging, leaky, stuffy, and stained structure, a sort of bricks-and-mortar monument to budget cuts and deferred maintenance.
In recent years, the school's structural ailments-including a leaky roof, soaked carpeting and ceiling tiles, and unbalanced ventilation system-have generated a series of human ailments, from burning eyes to asthma.
This building is so "sick" that it's slated for replacement by 2005. But its occupants aren't about to suffer alone and in silence until moving day.
Plainfield High staffers are pushing for a better indoor environment now by using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools" (TfS) kit-already adopted by some 9,000 schools nationwide.
By following this action kit's checklists, school staffers have a better handle on preventive maintenance.
They've mapped the building's indoor air quality trouble spots on a color-coded map, and they're attacking them through a broad-based indoor air quality (IAQ) action team that includes three Plainfield Education Association teacher members, the principal, the head custodian, the school nurse, three parents, and the head of the Northeast District Department of Health.
A complete cure for the building's ills "is too late at this point, but we're trying to stop the bleeding," says math teacher Diane Ethier, who co-chairs the team with special ed teacher Missy Wrigley.
By the start of this school year, an industrial hygienist had examined the building and offered a list of 19 recommended improvements, to which the air quality team added priorities of its own, including purchase of high-suction vacuum cleaners.
"Here and there, we're winning little victories," reports Ethier. "The high school's roof has been repaired. Some porous building material-a breeding ground for mold-has been removed, and carpeting has been pulled from the library and hallways."
Moreover, unit ventilators are now better maintained, and some have gotten bigger motors. And maintenance staffers now avoid unwise quick fixes, like spray-painting stained ceiling tiles.
And at long last, Plainfield staffers now know their mortal enemies by name: carbon dioxide and molds like aspergillus versicolor and penicillium.
"If we'd had Tools for Schools in place for the past ten years, none of this would have happened," sighs Ethier. "This program helps you stop indoor air quality problems in the first place."
Asthma on Rise in Connecticut
"Tools for Schools provides preventive measures for schools to prioritize and address indoor air quality issues," stresses Connecticut Education Association Vice President Phil Apruzzese, who has helped train educators like Diane Ethier how to apply the TfS program in their schools. "Better yet, it's a low-cost, no-cost kind of thing."
CEA has thrown its full weight behind this voluntary federal program-and for some very compelling reasons. While renowned for its tough teacher standards and high student achievement, Connecticut has no legally enforceable indoor air quality standards for its schools.
The result: educational statistics the Constitution State doesn't boast about.
CEA estimates that one in 12 of the state's students lives with some degree of asthma, while environmental health experts at the University of Connecticut report that teachers have the state's highest rate of occupational asthma, with machinists having the second- highest rate.
In response to this crisis, CEA and two other statewide organizations formed the Connecticut School Indoor Environment Resource Team in 1999.
That team, which has since expanded to 14 coalition partners, has trained staff committees in 48 schools on how to apply the Tools for Schools program, and is training another 28 this fall.
"We're truly a team. No one organization is 'larger' than another," says Apruzzese, one of the coalition's six trainers. He conducts workshops alongside indoor air quality specialists from the state Department of Public Health, UConn, Yale, the Connecticut Council for Occupational Safety and Health, and the American Lung Association's Open Airways program.
This five-hour program, which trains Tools for Schools committees on everything from ventilation basics to "walk-through" school inspections, "stresses communications with staff, parents, and school boards, and prioritization of goals and immediate needs," Apruzzese notes. "Our coalition's next objective is to train grassroots TfS trainers and provide ongoing consultation to TfS committees."
And count on coalition partners to lobby hard this coming February for a strong indoor environmental quality bill for Connecticut's schools.
This legislation, which passed the state Senate in the last session but never came to a House vote, contains such groundbreaking provisions as state clean-up and construction grants for schools with documented indoor air quality problems, a fixed schedule of school health and HVAC inspections, asthma exams and tracking for students, and site assessments for new building construction.
Key to Clean-Up: Organization
With or without strong indoor environmental legislation, the key to school clean-up in your state will always be school-site organization.
"You need to pull together an IAQ team that's as diverse as possible, with members from inside and outside the school," emphasizes Michele Hodak of the NEA Health Information Network.
"You need different perspectives and levels of expertise-from facilities personnel to local health officials," Hodak adds. "Even students can be advocates for air quality! All of these stakeholders together can be a strong force for getting things done."
"By working as a team, everyone begins to appreciate how their actions affect the indoor environment," says Susan Womble, director of EPA's Center for Pollutants and Source Guidance. "Teachers learn that their classrooms' unit ventilators shouldn't be used as bookshelves, that they shouldn't block the door vents or shut off air cleaner fans to muffle noise, or spray pests with their own can of Raid. This all greatly impacts air quality." 4
To request the EPA's Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools action kit, go to www.neahin.org/7.html or call 800/718-8387.
For more on the IAQ Tools for Schools program, current research on the impact of indoor air quality on student performance and asthma, and mold remediation guidance, go to www.epa.gov/iaq.
And to order IAQ publications, call EPA's Indoor Air Quality Information Hotline at 800/438-4318.
advice from the trenches:
"If indoor air is making teachers sick, students are probably getting sick, too. Don't sit there by yourself and suffer. Attack building problems while they're small, before they get out of hand.
"Get yourself tested by an allergist. Let parents and towns-people know what's going on. And, if need be, don't be afraid to go to the press or file a workers' compensation claim."
-Connecticut math teacher Diane Ethier
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Mold Contamination Ends Teaching Career
Staffers at the McKinley School in Fairfield, Connecticut used to joke about "teaching a rain forest unit" each time they saw painters scrape mold off the walls of their aging, water-saturated school.
But the joke ended when special education teacher Joellen Lawson removed mold-contaminated materials from her classroom in June 1998.
Lawson's overexposure to mycotoxins-produced by millions of stachybotrus, penicillium, and aspergillus mold spores in the air-sent her to the emergency room with severe vertigo, vomiting, diarrhea, and tremors.
Mold contamination at McKinley was so bad, in fact, that parents pulled sick kids from the school, forcing its permanent shutdown in October 2000.
Dr. John Santilli, chief of allergy and immunology at St. Vincent's Medical Center, Bridgeport, has seen allergies, "horrendous" sinus disease, asthma, or cognitive problems among some 50 students and staffers he has treated from the McKinley School.
"Some McKinley students have developed asthma for the very first time," the physician reports, "and there have been anecdotal stories of miscarriages and cancer."
One of Santilli's most serious cases is that of Joellen Lawson. Her body simply couldn't handle such intense exposure to mycotoxins, and she never regained her health.
Today on retirement disability, Lawson continues to suffer from well-documented neurological, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and sensory disturbances.
"I'm devastated," she says, "by the loss of a very fulfilling, 23-year career as a classroom teacher, educational consultant, seminar leader, and private tutor."
This dedicated educator hopes to be well enough to testify in favor of strong school environmental quality legislation that will be reintroduced in the Connecticut legislature next February. "I want to prevent someone else from going through my experience," she explains.
And count on Dr. Santilli to testify as well. "Nobody was ever exposed to these levels of mycotoxins until schools deteriorated," he points out. "Now I'm seeing cognitive problems in kids from other schools besides McKinley, along with eczema and anaphylactic problems.
"We need to do more research on mycotoxins," the physician concludes, "and the Environmental Protection Agency needs to develop standards on how to evaluate mold and contaminants in schools and other public buildings." 4
To read a consultant's technical report on conditions in the McKinley School, go to www.fairfield.k12.ct.us/TurnerReport.pdf.
Federal Cash Needed To Repair Schools
It takes lots of money to reverse the building deterioration affecting indoor air quality in schools. That's why two concerned members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican Nancy Johnson of Connecticut and Democrat Charles Rangel of New York, have introduced H.R. 1076, the America's Better Classrooms Act.
The bill would make $25 billion in interest-free bonds available to modernize outdated school buildings, repair safety problems, build new schools, and connect classrooms to updated technology.
Yet despite bipartisan support, H.R. 1076 is going nowhere. A chief obstacle: House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who largely determines which bills are scheduled for a vote.
It's time for a wake-up call. Recently, poor conditions forced the evacuation of two school buildings in Hastert's own Illinois district-one for severe mold contamination.
Illinois schools aren't alone. According to the American Institute of Architects, one in every three public schools is in dire need of repair.
"At an average age of 43 years, public schools will continue to crumble without federal help," says NEA President Bob Chase. "Unsafe and uncomfortable conditions impair learning and student achievement." 4
For more on the America's Better Classrooms Act, go to www.nea.org/lac/modern/.
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