School indoor air quality
Reduce your family's exposure

Fixing the Air Quality Problem Means Fixing the Schools

The U.S General Accounting Office has noted that about half of all schools have at least one significant environmental problem. Similarly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that half of all school have less than ideal indoor air quality. And in 1999, the U.S. Department of Education reported that $127 billion is needed for major rehabilitation and new construction of public schools nationwide.

All of these findings are related, at least indirectly, because much of the problem with indoor air quality has to do with old buildings that are not properly maintained. Or, buildings that are so old and in such disrepair that mere maintenance is no longer effective.

More than half of kindergarten through grade 12 schools are more than 40 years old and in need of renovation to reach proper standards of efficiency and comfort, and 6,000 new schools will be required over the next decade to handle the growing number of students.

In addition, many school districts lack knowledge of cutting-edge design and technologies that integrate efficient and environmentally healthy designs into new school construction and school renovations. Even something as seemingly simple as better ventilation in schools often cannot be achieved either because of lack of knowledge or lack of funds…or both.

Yet research has indicated that schools with proper ventilation, lighting, and high indoor air quality make for better health and stronger academic performance of the children attending them. Healthy schools allow kids to reach their potential.

Make sure you know what kind of condition your children’s schools are in. Make yourself aware of issues like maintenance, repair and planned renovations. If your school doesn’t “make the grade” and has no plans to do so, you should increase officials’ knowledge of the problems, risks and solutions.

One place that can help you learn more about what parents can do, as well as what they should know, is the Massachusetts Public Health Association’s “Understanding Indoor Air Quality” page. It provides links to information on why healthy school environments are so important, what conditions contribute to poor indoor air quality, and who to contact if a school has a potential problem. Some of the information is specific to Massachusetts, but most of it is applicable in some way to all states. To visit the page, click here.

Another good place to visit is the “Indoor Air Quality: Tools for Schools” page of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Click here to visit that page, which includes a wealth of information, including access to a Tools for Schools kit.

The National Education Association also has information online about indoor air quality. Click here to visit.

Curriculum Development

You should also consider helping or encouraging the teachers and administrators at your schools develop curriculum choices that teach kids about environmental health and safety. This might even include things they should be doing around their own schools to help and to stay safe. You might even be able to help teach the material yourself if you are so inclined. A very thorough example of such a curriculum can be found in the document “Healthy Environments–Healthy Kids Environmental Health Curriculum.”

This Healthy Environments–Healthy Kids curriculum is geared primarily toward chldren in pre-Kindergarten though second grade, though there are additional activities for older children in grades three through five. It was created as part of the Children’s Pesticides, Asbestos, and Lead Environmental Health Initiative and funded by Region 4 of the EPA. Click here to view the file online (you will need Acrobat Reader or Adobe Acrobat to view it. Acrobat Reader is available free from www.adobe.com).

The curriculum document is 155 pages long and nearly 8.7 megabytes in size, so it may take a while to open on your Web browser. If so, it might be easier and faster to use your mouse’s right-click button on the “click here” link above, and choose the “save target as” option, so that you can download it directly to your hard drive and view it later at your convenience.

A much smaller Microsoft Word document with brief information on purchasing some of the items in the curriculum can be reached by clicking here.