110N6 Focus RPP

A 298 VOLUME 110 | NUMBER 6 | June 2002 • Environmental Health Perspectives

Focus

Teachers at a Fairfield, Connecticut, grade schoolused to joke about working under tropical rain forest

conditions. Built on wetlands, McKinley Elementary hadsuffered chronic leaky ceilings and soggy carpets since theearly 1990s, problems that outstripped the pace ofattempted repairs. But the mold that kept colonizing theschool’s walls and corridors proved no laughing matter.For several years, scores of students and teachers experi-enced problems ranging from asthma to sinus infectionsto dizziness and tremors. After concerned teachers calledin federal health inspectors from the Occupational Safetyand Health Administration (OSHA), the school wasfinally closed in October 2000. Inspectors had detectedspores from at least eight varieties of mold, includingStachybotrys, which has been linked to serious illness andeven death. Shortly thereafter, a private consulting groupdetermined the building was unsalvageable. The districtnow must foot the bill to raze the building and replace itwith a new $21 million facility.

“The building impacted the health of 40% of the stu-dents and teachers,” estimates John Santilli, chief ofallergy and immunology at the nearby St. Vincent’sMedical Center in Bridgeport, who treated many of theafflicted pupils and staff over the years. At least oneteacher who was heavily exposed is on permanent disability,and others experienced breast cancers and miscarriagesthat Santilli says might be linked to exposure to second-ary mold metabolites called mycotoxins, but more studyis needed. “There’s a dearth of research on the impact ofindoor pollutants on human health and especially onchildren,” he says.

McKinley is not an isolated case. Experts contend thatthousands of schools nationwide harbor environmentalthreats that may be placing students, teachers, and staff

The PoorEnvironmentof America’s

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at risk. In addition to toxic molds, suchthreats may include indoor air pollution,exposure to pesticides, effects of overcrowd-ing including disease transmission, exposureto toxic chemicals from building materials,noise pollution, and the hazards of old andcrumbling school infrastructure.

More than 14 million (almost half ofU.S. children) attend schools with an envi-ronmental problem, according to a land-mark 1995 General Accounting Office(GAO) report entitled School Facilities:Condition of America’s Schools. Subsequentreports by educational advocacy groupssupport the findings. “Basically, almostno improvements have been madesince then,” says Claire Barnett, directorof the Healthy Schools Network, anational advocacy group based in NewYork. Says Barnett, who also serves onthe U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency’s (EPA) Office of Children’sHealth Protection federal advisorycommittee, “There is no oversightfrom the federal level and little over-sight of such issues in any of the states.Schools are very local.” She continues,“Environmental health in schools is anorphan issue. The federal governmenthas to take more of a leadership role atall different levels: research and sur-veillance, guidelines for maintenanceand repairs, and new construction.”

Indoor Air QualityExperts estimate that children spendabout 85% of their time indoors includ-ing about 7 hours per day in school.Poor indoor air quality is the most preva-lent environmental hazard in schools. Infact, 30–40% of schools have poorindoor air quality, according to the GAOreport. The threats include exposure tomolds and toxic fungi, pesticides, andvolatile organic chemicals emitted fromcleaning products, photocopiers, andclassroom furnishings. Radon gas andother outdoor pollutants also can enterschool buildings. And airborne asbestosfrom insulation and lead released frompaints and other building materials dur-ing renovation or repair can pose threats tohealth. Faulty heating, ventilation, and airconditioning (HVAC) systems only exacer-bate air quality problems.

So-called “sick building syndrome,” acompilation of unexplainable symptomsincluding headaches, nervous system effects,respiratory problems, and others, is also aconcern for schoolchildren. School nursesroutinely hear complaints of such symp-toms from children. The syndrome, firstformally identified by the World Health

Organization in 1983, became prevalentwith the advent in the 1970s of modern, air-tight buildings designed to conserve energy.

Poor indoor air quality affects studentperformance of mental tasks involving con-centration, calculations, and memory, andthus academic achievement, studies reveal.For example, the EPA Indoor Air Quality(IAQ) and Student Performance Web sitesummarizes a 1996 European study of 800students from eight different schools, pub-lished in Indoor Air ‘96. The SeventhInternational Conference on Indoor AirQuality and Climate. In the study, carbon

dioxide measurements were taken in theclassrooms, and students were given ahealth symptom questionnaire. A comput-er program scored students’ ability to con-centrate. Carbon dioxide itself is not ahealth threat at levels found indoors, butsince the main source of carbon dioxide inbuildings is exhaled breath, carbon dioxidelevels in classrooms are an indication of lowventilation rates and, therefore, high levelsof pollution. In classrooms where carbondioxide levels were high (low ventilation

rates), student scores on the concentrationtests were low; and their health symptomresponses were high. The results were statis-tically significant and tend to confirm thatwith indoor air quality management,including source control and adequate ven-tilation, student performance can improve.

Epidemiologists believe polluted indoorair increases the rates of allergies, asthma,and infectious and respiratory diseases. AJune 1998 study by the Central New YorkOccupational Health Clinical Center enti-tled Health and Safety at School reportedthat teachers were the fifth most common

occupational group seen by doctors overthe nine-year history of the clinic.Educational settings were the secondmost common type of worksite reportedby the clinic’s patients. According to thestudy, more than 80% of the patientsthat worked in school environmentswere diagnosed with respiratory illness.According to a 1995 report Asthma inAmerica, published by Mikalix andCompany in Waltham, Massachusetts,schools and childcare facilities may behome to many common asthma triggersincluding indoor air pollution.According to an article in the March1992 issue of the American Journal ofPublic Health, asthma is the number onecause of school absences attributed tochronic illnesses, leading to an average of4.6 school days missed annually.

Crumbling Schools and PackedClassroomsBuildings that are not well maintainedcan contribute to poor environmentalconditions, and the nation’s crumblingschool infrastructure is a prime example.About one-third of school buildingsrequire major repairs or out-and-outreplacement, according to a 2000 reportby the National Education Association(NEA) entitled Modernizing Our Schools:What Will It Cost? On average, thenation’s public schools are more than 40years old, which means more and morewill need repairs in the next decade.More than $320 billion will be needed to

bring schools up to standard nationwide,estimates the NEA report. The figureincludes $268 billion for infrastructure andthe remainder for technology upgrades.Rural schools often have more environmentalproblems, according to another recent reportby the National Center for EducationStatistics entitled Conditions of America’sPublic School Facilities: 1999. Funding is themain barrier to upgrades, the report found.

Last winter, Congress passed the Healthyand High Performance Schools Act, which C

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Focus • Learning the Hard Way

Hitting a ceiling on learning? Molding ceiling tiles,an example of decaying school infrastructure, maycontribute dangerous toxins to school indoor air.



directs the Department of Education (ED) tostudy the effects of decayed schools on childhealth and learning and to set up a programto help states create buildings that arehealthier and more energy efficient. The leg-islation is unprecedented. “It brings childenvironmental health issues to theDepartment of Education for the first timeand opens the door for more conversations,”says Barnett, who led the national campaignfor passage. However, the ED has yet to actbecause the House of Representativesstripped the program’s funding from the law.

In 2000, recognizing that schools sufferfrom an epidemic of indoor air pollution,Congress appropriated $1.2 billion forhealth and safety grants for emergency reno-vations in schools. However, the Bushadministration has thus far failed to renewthe federal repair funding program in itsbudget requests to Congress.

Where schools are sited, of course, caninfluence their exposure to environmentalthreats. Unfortunately, hundreds of thou-sands of U.S. schoolchildren attend schoolsthat were built within a half-mile radius of aknown contaminated site. Such proximityputs them at increased risk for developingdiseases linked to environmental pollutantssuch as asthma, cancer, and learning disor-

ders, according to a report entitled CreatingSafe Learning Zones: Invisible Threats, VisibleActions, released in January by the ChildProofing Our Communities Campaign,coordinated by the Center for Health,Environment, and Justice in Falls Church,Virginia. The study looked at Superfundand other contaminated sites in five states:California, Massachusetts, Michigan, NewJersey, and New York. It found that morethan 1,100 public schools are built within ahalf-mile radius of such a site, exposingmore than 600,000 students to potentialhazards. It suggests that thousands moreschools in other states are likely puttingother students at risk.

Although the study found no direct linkbetween school location and disease, it notesthe increase in such problems nationally. Forexample, the study notes a dramatic rise inthe number of children afflicted with asthma,cancer, learning disabilities, attention deficithyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autismnationally. Autism cases, for one, may havedoubled between 1987 and 1990. Asthmaafflicts 8.6 million U.S. children under age18, according to the American LungAssociation. And the National CancerInstitute reports sharp increases in cases ofchildhood cancer between 1973 and 1995.

The jury is still out on whether exposure tochemicals may cause disorders such asautism and ADHD. Currently, the Agencyfor Toxic Substances and Disease Researchis studying the issue of siting schools nearhazardous waste sites.

New schools continue to be built nearsuch sites because such land is cheap andavailable. By 2003, 2,400 new schools areexpected to be completed to meet needs ofthe growing population, the NEA estimates.“If action isn’t taken immediately, these newschools will continue to be built withoutguidelines to protect children against chemi-cal exposures,” says Lois Gibbs, executivedirector of the Center for Health,Environment and Justice. Gibbs foundedthe center two decades ago after leading apublic awareness campaign about nuclearhazards near Love Canal in Niagara Falls,New York.

A lack of sufficient numbers of schoolsleads to overcrowded classrooms, a situationthat only adds to the problem. Most schoolshave quadruple the number of people persquare foot as most offices, the NEA reports.And aside from prisons, schools are the mostdensely populated institutions in the UnitedStates. There’s a clear relation between class-room density and communicable diseases,

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Don’t blame boredom. Research shows that poor ventilation in schools may contribute to student difficultiesin focusing and concentrating on lessons.

asserts Darryl Alexander, associate directorof Occupational Environmental Healthwith the American Federation of Teachers.“There’s more outbreaks of [tuberculosis inschools] than in any other community,”she says.

Rapid growth in various areas of theUnited States has led to the increased use ofportable classrooms as a solution to over-crowding. Some 85,000 portable classroomsare currently in use in California. They arealso increasingly popular in Sunbelt com-munities experiencingrapid growth. Forexample, the structureswere a big issue duringthe last gubernatorialrace in Florida. Oftenthey are introduced asa stop-gap measure,but construction ofpermanent classroomsoften ends up beingdelayed for decadesthanks to tight educa-tion budgets.

Such modularclassroom units, how-ever, are often builtfrom hazardous mate-rials and have poorventilation, asserts astudy by the Envi-ronmental WorkingGroup (EWG), a non-profit environmentalresearch organizationbased in Washington,DC. The study, pub-lished on the organiza-tion’s Web site, calculated that long-termexposure to formaldehyde, benzene, andother chemicals emitted by such portablescould increase a child’s lifetime risk ofdeveloping cancer by a factor of two.

Last year in California, a settlement wasreached between As You Sow, a SanFrancisco–based environmental group, and14 manufacturers and distributors of mod-ular buildings. As part of the settlement,the industry will substitute a less-toxic for-mulation of formaldehyde used in particleboard and plywood in the rooms, improveventilation, and use formaldehyde-freeadhesives, among other things.

Although the industry admitted nowrongdoing in the settlement, other studiesby As You Sow and others have foundpotentially harmful levels of toxic chemicalsin the air in portable classrooms. “There issomething to these reports rather thansome imaginary mass hysteria,” says BillWalker, California director of the EWG.

“We’d like to find ways to phase outformaldehyde altogether,” says Larry Fahn,As You Sow’s executive director. Woodproducts that use phenol formaldehyde stillemit some of the chemical into the air butmuch less than the more commonly usedurea formaldehyde. Fahn worries thatportable classrooms in other regions of thecountry may still contain wood treatedwith the urea formulation because otherstates don’t have as stringent laws asCalifornia’s Proposition 65, which mandates

warning labels on all products containingcancer-causing or harmful chemicals.

Researchers at the Lawrence BerkeleyNational Laboratory and the UCLA Schoolof Public Health are developing tools toassess exposures in portable classrooms inchildren 5–9 years old. In the UCLAPortable Classroom Study, researchers areexamining 20 classrooms in seven LosAngeles area schools. About two-thirds areportable.

“There’s a relative dearth of informa-tion about schools in general,” says seniorresearch associate Derek Shendell. Theteam is looking at everything from indoorair temperature and relative humidity andair exchange rates, to emissions of suchvolatile organic compounds as formalde-hyde and acetaldehyde, to new types ofHVAC systems. Preliminary results revealthat the upkeep of HVAC systems can bejust as important as their quality. “It’s notthat the current technology is the prob-

lem,” Shendell says, “it’s how that technol-ogy is being operated and maintained overtime.” The researchers are also finding thathuman factors play a role. Anecdotally,teachers often turn off the ventilation sys-tems because of the noise, Shendell says.

Noise and LightingNoise is another form of classroom pollu-tion. Recent findings presented at theAcoustical Society of America meetingthis past December by University of

Florida at Gainesvilleresearchers showedthat noisy classroomsseverely hamper stu-dents’ ability tolearn. In Florida ele-mentary, middle,and high schools, ateam led by archi-tect professor GarySeibein and CarlCrandell, a commu-nications sciencesand disorders pro-fessor, found thatbackground noiselevels average about50 decibels. Althougha normal speakingvoice registers atabout 60 decibels,students typicallyhave a difficult timehearing once back-ground levels reach50 decibels. In thestudy, students posi-tioned more than 12

feet from a teacher heard half or less of thelecture. Noise may also contribute to voicedisorders among teachers, who experiencehigher rates of such problems than thegeneral population. “I believe it’s becauseteachers have to scream over the noise,”Alexander says.

Previous studies provide more evidencethat noise may impair learning. For exam-ple, a 1975 study at a school near railroadtracks found children who spent six years inclassrooms closest to the tracks were anentire year behind children whose roomswere furthest from the tracks. A 1993 studyby Cornell University researcher GaryEvans, published in Children’s Environments,determined that children exposed to noiseexperienced assorted health and learningdifficulties compared with unexposed chil-dren. Elevated blood pressure, trouble withword discrimination, learned helplessness,and cognitive developmental delays wereobserved. [See EHP 105:1300–1301]



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Portable pollution. Portable classrooms, the answer to school overcrowding inmany states, have been shown to emit potentially dangerous chemicals includingformaldehyde and benzene.



In 2003, a federal noise standard forclassrooms of 35 decibels and 0.6 secondreverberation—the length of time a soundlingers in a room after a noise stops—isslated to go into effect. The Federal AccessBoard, which creates regulations under theAmericans With Disabilities Act, isreviewing the standard now. Only centralair-conditioning units are quiet enough tomeet the standard.

On the basis of virtual classroom model-ing, Crandell and Siebein recommendsquare rooms with ceilings less than 10 feethigh to minimize noise. In addition, thesquare footage of total absorbent material(acoustical ceiling tiles or wall panels) shouldequal the total area of a room for maximumnoise reduction, they say. Shendell and histeam, meanwhile, are testing prototypeHVAC units that are not only quieter butalso more efficient at particulate filtrationthan are conventional systems.

In addition to noise, research has alsoshown that there is a significant effect ofpoor lighting on children’s ability to learn.Sunlight is important for human health.Children who spend large amounts of timein artificial lighting may be missing out onsome of sunlight’s benefits.

Case studies reported by the HealthySchools Network in a fact sheet on schoollighting show the benefits of “daylighting,”or creating classrooms with “full-spectrumlighting.” For example, a two-year study ofsix schools in Johnston County, NorthCarolina, compared children attendingschools with full-spectrum light with thoseattending traditionally lit classrooms.Students in full-spectrum light were healthi-er overall and attended school 3.2 to 3.8 daysmore per year. They also exhibited more pos-itive moods. The study also showed thatlibraries with superior light had significantlylower noise levels. A study of students inCapistrano School District in OrangeCounty, California showed that students inclassrooms with the most natural light pro-gressed 20% faster on math tests and 26%faster on reading tests in one year than thosewith the least amount of daylight.

Another benefit of daylighting isincreased energy efficiency of schools andthus, significant cost savings—that can beused for other school needs—and reducedenvironmental impact.

PesticidesPesticide exposure in schools is a nationalconcern to parents and school administratorsalike. Surveys indicate a majority of schoolsin most states still use pesticides that areknown to cause cancer or adversely effect thenervous, hormone, or reproductive systemsPh

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Just say “Shhh!” High levels of noise have been shown to contribute to learn-ing difficulties such as trouble with word discrimination, learned helplessness, andcognitive delays. Meanwhile, new information suggests that use of natural lightin classrooms may significantly improve test scores and student behavior.

in and around school buildings. For exam-ple, 93% of 46 California school districtsrecently surveyed used pesticides and 87%use hazardous formulations with knownhealth effects. Hope for better national pro-tections for students from pesticides inschools was dashed in May when Congress,after a several year drive by advocates, tabledthe School Environmental Protection Act,which would have supported efforts to putso-called best practices like integrated pestmanagement programs in place. “Teachersand school staff deserve the basic health andsafety protections that this right-to-knowand pest management measure would pro-vide,” says Jay Feldman, executivedirector of the national advocacygroup Beyond Pesticides. As itstands, there are no federalrequirements for schools toreduce children’s school-basedexposures to pesticides.

Only four states: Maryland,Massachusetts, Michigan, andPennsylvania, have laws on thebooks that cover the three keyaspects of pesticide protection:posting, notifications, and inte-grated pest management (IPM).Thirty-one states have adoptedpesticide laws that cover at leastone such element, according to asurvey by Beyond Pesticides enti-tled The Schooling of State PesticideLaws 2002 Update.

Even in states where laws havebeen passed, compliance often falls short. In2000, the EWG reported that several millionpounds of the pesticide methyl bromidewere still being applied annually near schoolsin California despite a 1989 law to protectcitizens. Since then, California has passedthe Healthy Schools Act that requiresschools to report to parents in writing whatchemicals are used to kill pests, but the lawdoes not ban pesticides in schools. Manyschools have adopted IPM to discourageroutine use of pesticides, and to use the leasttoxic method whenever possible. InMaryland, for instance, 17 of 17 school dis-tricts surveyed adopted IPM policies.

Policy Gaps at the Local LevelCracks in the system to protect environ-mental health in schools were underscoredin the aftermath of the terrorist attacks onthe World Trade Center. Seven publicschools located just blocks from the WorldTrade Center disaster area were evacuatedand temporarily relocated, includingStuyvesant High School and SpecialEducation School. When the students couldsafely move back and how the environments

would be monitored proved highly con-tentious. Some 3,000 students were movedback into the Stuyvesant facility as early as 9October. But the school was just 60 feetfrom the barge operation where trucks weredumping wreckage for transfer to the FreshKills landfill on Staten Island. Large levels ofdust infiltrated the school. Dozens of stu-dents and teachers experienced problemsranging from rashes to respiratory ailments.More than 50 members of the teachers’ localunion filed a grievance on the issue.

“They were the canaries in the coalmine,” says research consultant SarahBartlett of the Stuyvesant students. “What

happened at Stuyvesant shook up the otherparent communities,” she says, whichdecided not to move students back untilJanuary or February 2002. “The childrenbecame political tools to make it seem likethings were normal downtown,” Bartlettsays. But there was little information avail-able about the nature of the dust and notracking of students’ health complaints. “Alot of people wish they hadn’t moved thestudents back,” she says.

The attacks called attention to the factthat indoor air quality is a bigger issue forurban schools then was previously under-stood, Bartlett says. New York City has spentroughly $10 million to retrofit the air filtra-tion systems of the schools affected by theSeptember 11 attacks. The effects ofSeptember 11 also highlight the lack of anational tracking system of environmentalproblems in schools. “There’s no tracking ofpupil injury or illness at schools or efforts tocompile such information on a national orstatewide basis,” Barnett says. “There isn’t asystem in place even to report mold contam-ination or chemical exposures. Given thetimes we’re living in, it’s a little unsettling.”

For example, the spreading outbreak ofunexplained rashes on students at schools inmore than 20 states and parts of Canada thatbegan before September 11 remains much ofa mystery, despite the fact that the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention haslaunched an investigation, Barnett says.“Inadequate local reporting of cases hasn’thelped matters,” she says. “There is also nobaseline against which a rash outbreak couldbe measured.”

Even with improved legislation at thefederal or the state level, much of the respon-sibility for improving school environmentalconditions would still fall to local govern-

ments. And local political bodies havetheir limitations, critics contend. “Byand large, school districts are not thebest building owners in the world,”Alexander says. “Whenever they’re ina bind financially, they raid fundsfrom the maintenance budget with-out understanding the implicationsfor occupants.”

Such was the case in Connecticutat the McKinley School, where themold eventually overtook the build-ing. “It’s a situation where the boardof education didn’t get the signifi-cance of the problem,” says Santilli.“They pooh-poohed it.”

By the same token, local politicscan tie administrators’ hands. “Ifyou look at bond issues that getdefeated, you can see the predica-ment administrators are put into,”

Alexander says. Schools are also affectedby liability and disclosure issues, saysMichele Hodak, senior project coordina-tor for indoor air quality for the NEA’sHealth Information Network. “People areafraid of negative publicity. But if there isa problem and nothing is done about it,kids, staff, and teachers may be put atgreater risk,” she says. “A small hazard canbecome a much bigger issue and evenmore expensive to fix.” Says Alexander,“There are too many incentives built intoschool boards and districts [to deny envi-ronmental problems].”

Few Federal FixesEven though close to 20% of the nationpasses its days inside schools, no specificfederal laws protect students and teachersfrom harmful environmental conditions inor surrounding their schools. In short, nonationwide laws target indoor air quality,pesticide use near schools, or how closeschools and hazardous sites can be locatedto each other, despite the fact that assortedfederal education, research, and grant pro-grams target such issues.



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Playing with pesticides. A growing national move-ment is targeting the use of dangerous pesticides in andaround schools.



OSHA standards and regulations, whichcover adults in certain portions of the work-place, offer some environmental protectionsto teachers and staff such as the ability to callin a health inspector to investigate a seriousexposure. But the standards and regulationsdon’t pertain to children. Moreover, it’s anunusual occasion when exposure levels in anoffice building or school would approachthose spelled out in the regulations, whichwere designed in the early 1970s for indus-trial settings, according to OSHA.

Staff, teachers, or administrators mayalso request an investigation of an indoorenvironmental exposure or incident from theHealth Hazard Evaluation Program of theNational Institute for Occupational Safetyand Health (NIOSH), which sets guidelinesrelating to indoor air quality. The programreceives 450 requests a year, half of whichresult in site visits, a small fraction of whichare at schools. “We always look at ventilationas a key component as well as comfortparameters,” says Gregory Burr, a certifiedindustrial hygienist at NIOSH. Often prob-lems can be addressed over the phone basedon experience from previous cases. “Usually,it’s not just a single factor that’s causing aproblem,” Burr says. “The answers aren’talways black and white.”

School advocates contend that thereneeds to be a parallel outlet to NIOSH forstudents. “There’s nowhere to go and com-plain when kids are being exposed to awfulconditions,” Barnett says. “There’s no wayof getting any immediate attention or inves-tigation.” One state, Maine, has moved togive students employee status under the reg-ulations. Still, asserts Alexander, “Kids are ina total vacuum. Teachers and staff are in apartial vacuum. None of the federal agenciesare doing enough.”

Existing federal laws are probably thetoughest on asbestos. Under the federalAsbestos Management Emergency ResponseAct, schools are required to have an asbestosmanagement plan and pass an inspectionevery three years. In about half of states, thefederal regulation is enforced at the statelevel, according to the EPA’s AsbestosOmbudsman Office. There are no federallaws on the books requires testing for lead orlead abatement in schools.

A leading obstacle to passing broader leg-islation is a dearth of research on how indoorpollutants affect human health. Much workremains to establish solid links between anagent and an illness, and to unravel whatmakes individuals susceptible to exposures.Meanwhile, advocates believe that children,in particular, may be more susceptible toenvironmental hazards than are adults. Howmuch more so remains unknown. “It’s clear

children are uniquely vulnerable,” Barnettsays. “But what does that mean when you’reinside a building?”

There has been significant legislativeactivity at the state level recently, however.More than 12 states, including Maine,Minnesota, New York, and California, haveadopted new policies or regulations thataddress indoor air quality in schools. “Thereis a momentum out there at the state level,”Alexander says.

Most of the laws were recently put on thebooks and are in the early stages of imple-mentation, according to an EnvironmentalLaw Institute (ELI) report released earlierthis year entitled Healthier Schools: A Reviewof State Policy for Improving Indoor AirQuality. “States have a pretty big role toplay,” says Tobie Bernstein, a senior ELIattorney who authored the report. “There’s aneed for more attention to be paid to thissubject throughout the country.”

Stepping Up to the BoardThe EPA does provide guidance for schools,however. It produced an indoor air quality“Tools for Schools” kit that includes a guide-book, a CD-ROM, checklists for schoolemployees, a fact sheet, a problem-solvinginformation wheel, and sample policies andmemos.

“We still get a lot done in a voluntaryfashion,” says Mary Smith, director of theEPA’s Indoor Environments Division. Sheestimates that 9,000 of the nation’s 110,000schools have implemented some sort ofindoor air quality policy in recent yearsthanks to the EPA’s outreach efforts. Herdivision will conduct a survey this summerto better gauge the impact of its efforts inthis area.

Anecdotal evidence reveals that indoorair quality policies are working. In the LittleHarbour school in Portsmouth, NewHampshire, for example, school nursePriscilla Santiago reported to Smith a dra-matic decrease in visits to her office andabsenteeism after the EPA’s “Tools forSchools” program was implemented.

Many school districts, such as those inMaryland’s Montgomery County andCalifornia’s Los Angeles County, have imple-mented indoor air quality managementplans. Two years ago, the MontgomeryCounty district added a preventive mainte-nance team that has systematically beenassessing school buildings one by one. Nightcrews complete preventive maintenance andensure that schools are maintained at theimproved level. So far, the team has assessedroughly 40 of 198 schools in the district,according to Barry J. Hemler, the program’senvironmental safety coordinator. The $2

million annual price tag is affordable at lessthan 0.02% of the district’s overall budget,Hemler says. “It still is enough to make ameasurable difference.”

Moreover, the efforts of a federal intera-gency task force on child environmentalhealth co-chaired by the EPA and theDepartment of Health and Human Servicesis addressing issues related to asthma, indoorair, and school environments, and will bringthe resources of these agencies to bear onsuch problems, as well as better coordinateexisting programs.

The EPA also puts out supporting litera-ture and videos on related topics rangingfrom asthma to mold. For example, in addi-tion to putting together the “Tools forSchools” kit, the EPA teamed up with thecast and crew of the TV show This Old Houseto create a video on how to properly operateand maintain school ventilation systems.They are currently working on “Tools forNew Schools,” a kit which will detail how todesign a new school to be more environmen-tally friendly.

Besides sponsoring annual indoor airquality symposiums and awards, the EPAalso has other initiatives underway toenhance environmental health in schools.For example, its “Buy Clean” program strivesto encourage schools to purchase and testenvironmentally preferable products forcleaning, use in science labs, art classes, andso forth. Currently, the program is support-ing pilot grants in 13 schools nationwide andis developing case studies for use by otherschools. A “Buy Clean” Web site andbrochure will be also be available, accordingto Cathy Fehrenbacher, chief of the EPA’sexposure assessment branch.

Even some advocates acknowledge thatfederal regulations would not necessarilyprove a panacea for environmental health inschools. “It is a difficult thing to regulatebecause one school may have a pesticideapplication problem while another has aventilation issue,” Smith says. Regionalvariables include everything from climate tothe number of kids in classrooms. But, shesays, getting best practices in place is a chiefpolicy goal.

Until stronger federal protections arepassed, the lion’s share of the burden to safe-guard children from environmental hazardsin schools will continue to fall on localshoulders. Children’s advocates contend thatit is up to state and local administrators,teachers, students, and parents to protectschool environments, and to get the mostfrom federal resources and agencies that aremoving to address the issue.

Julie Wakefield

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110N6 Focus RPP