Carpets & Flooring
CRI Articles
IEHA Articles
IICRC Articles
Features
Why not promote and support healthy schools in your community? Since this is your child's home away from home, what could be more important? It all starts by talking with others. So start a dialogue with key people in your community:
- Ask to have children’s and teachers’ health put on the PTA agenda. Use guidelines from the book, Clean and Healthy Schools For Dummies (available free - plus shipping and handling - from the IEHA) and other aids to help other parents understand the role of cleaning and maintenance for good health. Give a copy to the facility manager and/or cleaning department manager and ask them to join the discussion. Ask them to evaluate their ability to provide healthy schools with the resources made available to them. Offer to help and develop a team approach with teachers, principals, facility cleaning and maintenance staff, and the school nurse.
- Get support from local health organizations. Ask them to come to a PTA meeting and talk about chemical contamination, infectious diseases, and the best ways to provide healthier indoor environments in the schools.
- Solicit support from other parents and community members for better indoor environmental quality in schools. Get suggestions from EPA’s “Tools for Schools” program, and from Clean and Healthy Schools For Dummies.
- Form a task group to develop a strategy. Write short articles for the local newspaper on healthy schools, and on the goals of the task group. Frequently report on meeting agendas and progress for the newspaper. Include quotes from various members.
- Invite supporters to go to school board meetings dealing with budgets, green school programs, health, cleaning and maintenance, or general planning etc. Argue for giving a high priority to cleaning and maintenance programs. Suggest that the school board sanction a task force to research the subject and provide a formal report. Get local press coverage when the report is released.
Who are the main health managers of a school? The answer may surprise you; in addition to the school principal, nurse and faculty, they include the facility manager, cleaning staff and others involved in the cleaning and maintenance of a school.
- If needed, suggest that the school district start with a single school as an experiment. Develop a program in that school and include measurements of results. Report on reductions in chemical and microbial contamination. See if it can be related to sick absences. Get children involved in hand washing and general good hygienic behaviors. Interview children and parents on their attitude to the program and include interview results in the report. Use the results to argue for expansion of healthy school programs to other schools.
School boards or administrators may be fully committed to having green schools and healthy schools. Why then do they often follow that commitment with budget cuts to the cleaning and maintenance programs when resources are tight? Simple: They just don’t realize how inadequate budgets inevitably lead to poorer health and reduced academic performance.
How can you make a difference?
Pick up a free copy of Clean and Healthy Schools For Dummies. You may also want to read EPA’s excellent Tools for Schools Communication Guide.
Our children are the future. Let's do more to help by getting involved!
(Adapted with permission from Clean and Healthy Schools For Dummies.)
