Open Letter: Construction and Renovation in our Schools

Do you perceive our nation's schoolhouse environments to be generally SAFE? It is a common but misguided assumption. A recent U.S. Government Accounting Office (US GAO) trio of reports found that our crumbling classrooms need about $112 billion to upgrade them to good overall condition. Thomas Y. Hobart, Jr., president of the New York State United Teachers Union, has said: "For too long, we have regarded schools as safe, clean places to work. But, today, we know that workers in schools and the students they serve are subjected to safety and health hazards that threaten their lives." The World Health Organization estimates that about 30% of U.S. schools have indoor air quality problems. And the figure may be even higher for newly constructed or remodeled facilities. In fact, the building and renovation boom, in school systems across the country, is backfiring in widespread outbreaks of building-associated illnesses, which many refer to as THE SICK SCHOOL SYNDROME. As an environmental health consultant, specializing in school safety, I am writing to alert everyone who cares about kids, to look at this issue with a sense of urgency and commitment.

Renovation can introduce significant new environmental hazards into the ambient air. If materials are indiscriminately chosen, if the structure is haphazardly designed, or if precautions are not taken to isolate the construction area from the occupied portions of the building, the schoolhouse can become a long-term source of chemical contamination. The US EPA, in a report entitled "Environmental Goals for America," to be released at the end of this year, writes:

"New or renovated buildings can have pollutants up to 100 times higher than those found outdoors."

This becomes all the more crucial when we learn, that according to researchers at the University of California at Irvine (Robert Phalem, director of the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory), children are 6 times more vulnerable to indoor air contaminants than are adults. In a very real sense then, a child's health is an ecological mirror or a barometer of the environment in which s/he functions. In an average lifespan of 70 years, we breathe some 500 million to one billion times. The quality of the air our children breathe intimately affects their personal state of health and vitality.

I have collected more than 2600 case histories of students and teachers whose health has been compromised because of preventable schoolhouse exposures. Let me tell you the story of just one 7-year-old, second grade girl, we will call Kathy, from Pennsylvania. Her school underwent a major $8 million renovation and demolition project (asbestos removal, ceiling tile replacement, water leakage repairs, carpet installation, window replacements, removal of lead-based paints, upgrading insulation, etc.). During this extensive work in the occupied elementary school, chunks of concrete fell into one occupied classroom and a crane boom smashed into another. Occupants were continually exposed to particulates, dusts, natural gas leaks, fumes, dislodged molds, solvents and assorted other volatile organic compounds.

And how did all these exposures affect our little Kathy? She now suffers from asthma, allergic rhinitis and sinusitis. She has had repeated episodes of walking pneumonia. Her Mom says that she looks like an owl with dark circles under her eyes. She exhibits problems with short term memory, an inability to concentrate and "brain fog." She becomes hyperactive after eating certain foods and lethargic on exposure to specific chemicals and molds. This previously happy, healthy and energetic child now appears depressed and cries frequently. Her doctors have diagnosed her with a digestive disorder called "leaky gut syndrome" which causes her to have chronic, extreme stomach pains. They have also said that her immune system has been seriously dysregulated.

Kathy has been out of school since November '96 and is being homeschooled for 5 hours per week. Her mother reports that at the end of first grade, Kathy was reading at a second grade level; in second grade (after just 2 1/2 months of exposure to the renovations), her reading scores dropped to below Kindergarten level!!!. Kathy had never received an unsatisfactory grade throughout her Kindergarten and first grade career. She received four such grades in only 10 weeks in the second grade, during the renovation. She just could not function in that toxic environment. Things are beginning to improve now that she is being homeschooled.

Kathy is not the only victim. A disproportionately large number of the other students at the school are suddenly having surgery to remove tonsils, adenoids and to insert ear tubes. Several teachers have been diagnosed with adult onset asthma and Reactive Airway Disease. Many of her classmates, and concerned parents and teachers have signed a petition to protest conditions at the school, still being renovated. And this scenario is repeated in school districts across the country. This is a travesty!

A life long legacy of disability and despair is too high a price to be paid by any youngster in exchange for an education in an American public school!!! I urge you not to barter the health of your students and teachers for quick-fix, conventional renovation techniques. Take the time to study this issue. Safe and effective schools are predicated on informed choices and decisions, on environmental risk reduction and source control. I encourage you to assemble an IAQ Task Force to help design your renovation plans. We must all work together to provide the healthiest possible learning environment for our children by eliminating all chemical obstacles to education. Our future depends on it.

Sincerely,

Irene Wilkenfeld, Pres.

SAFE SCHOOLS