Search

"School facilities represent the second largest sector of U.S. public infrastructure spending after highways, and yet no comprehensive national data source exists on K–12 public school infrastructure. Even at the state level, school facilities information is often scant. The death of official data and standards for our nation’s public school infrastructure has left communities and states working largely on their own to plan for and provide high-quality facilities. According to the Healthy Schools Network (2015), the U.S. Department of Education has never had any in-house staff with expertise in school-facility management or child environmental health. Moreover, there is no federal regulatory agency with the authority to intervene in schools to address known environmental health hazards; Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention health hazard evaluations and guidance are designed to protect the health of adult employees, such as school teachers and staff, but no agency has the overarching responsibility to ensure that children’s health is safeguarded at school. This must change. A National School Infrastucture Assessment, and National Director of School Infrastructure, are needed."

This quote does a number of things. It draws attention to the critical lack of data, especially publicly-available data, on school facilities. Without this data, it is nearly impossible to know the scope of the problem, prioritize actions across and within districts, or make connections between districts dealing with similar issues. Collaboration will be critical to our response to the challenges presented by environmental hazards in order to make sure we are not duplicating efforts in different locations. It also draws attention to the fact that no government agency is directly responsible for the health of children in school buildings and proposes the creation of a government agency to solve this problem. This is an interesting solution and is one I have not seen proposed elsewhere.

This report is an interdisciplinary literature review, drawing from a variety of scholarly and professional data and research to present a complete view of the impacts of school facilities on students. The academic studies drawn on include medical, psychological, educational, and environmental research. The authors also drew on professional standards (for example, of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers or ASHRAE) to delineate what levels of exposure to various hazards is safe.

The bibliography is not included in the report itself. According to the last page of the report, it is supposed to be accessible online but I was not able to find it.

"Higher temperatures not only increase levels of ozone and other air pollutants that exacerbate cardiovascular and respiratory illness, but they can also increase levels of pollen and airborne allergens that aggravate asthmatic symptoms (World Health Organization, 2015) and, as a result, directly affect student performance (Park, 2016). Hotter temperatures will continue to place greater demands on heating and cooling systems, and greater care will need to be taken to ensure that indoor environments remain comfortable for school building occupants. It is predicted that extreme heat will lead to increased numbers of droughts and wildfires, resulting in increased fine particulate matter intrusion in schools (Nazaroff, 2013). Children’s physical and visual health may also be at risk as hotter outdoor temperatures limit opportunities for outdoor play."

This quote demonstrates the direct effects that climate change--specifically, rising temperatures--will have on school buildings and therefore children. This is a very under-studied area and one that is especially pressing. Elsewhere in the report, they also discuss the impacts of rapidly increasing urbanization: in the future, more schools will be located in proximity to high volume roadways and airports and in urban centers, all of which exacerbate the effects of rising temperatures.