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Healthy Schools Resource List

Healthy Child Healthy World
Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Though children spend much of their growing years in school buildings and on school grounds, toxins in the environment can impair their health, learning and development.

The following resources provide information on solutions to school environmental health issues:

  • Back to School Environmental Checklist
    BE SAFE is a national initiative to build support for the precautionary approach to prevent pollution and environmental destruction before it happens. Their Back to School Environmental Checklist includes basic questions any parent or teacher can answer by walking through their school. The BE SAFE Network and other groups developed the Checklist to encourage communities to address school environmental issues that may pose a threat to children’s health.
  • Back to School Check List
    These questions supplement those in BE SAFE's list
  • Healthy Schools/Healthy Kids, ABCs
    This downloadable report, produced by Healthy Schools Network, Inc. is a guide to common issues affecting child health and learning and adult occupational health at school. Healthy Schools Network is a national advocacy organization for the protection of children's environmental health in schools. Other useful publications include Parent Guide to School IAQ, Healthier Cleaning and Maintenance Practices and Products for Schools , Kick the Pesticide Habit, and Sanitizer and Disinfectants Guide. These can be downloaded from their website.
  • The Green Flag Program
    An initiative of the national Child Proofing Our Communities campaign, coordinated by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ). The program is designed to help communities make their schools healthier places to learn, and to educate students about environmental responsibility.
  • Poisoned Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions
  • Creating Safe Learning Zones: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions
  • Creating Safe Learning Zones: The ABC’s of Healthy Schools Primer
    These reports, compiled by the Child Proofing Our Communities campaign, provide excellent information about the environmental threats to children in schools and the primer, The ABC's of Healthy Schools, explains how to make schools healthier.
  • Parents’ Guide for Improving School Environmental Health
    This guide from Vermont Public Interest Research Group’s (VPIRG) Healthy Schools Initiative provides guidance on clean indoor air, the elimination of pesticides at schools, and safe cleaning and maintenance supplies.
  • Healthy School Environments, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
    This site is a gateway to on-line resources that address environmental health issues in schools. Browse by topic or geographic area.
  • The Collaborative for High Performance Schools, California
    The Collaborative (also known as CHPS), aims to facilitate the design of high performance schools: environments that are not only energy efficient, but also healthy, comfortable, well lit and contain the amenities needed for a quality education. Information, services and incentive programs are available for school districts and designers.
  • Division of the State Architect's Sustainable Schools, California
    A diverse collection of sustainable building resources including the benefits, guidelines, programs, case studies, relevant publications, funding options/incentives, and plenty more. The site is geared toward school administrators and board officials, developers, architects, planners, researchers, teachers, parents, and others.
  • National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF)
    This website provides an enormous up-to-date list of articles and guides on hazardous materials, indoor air quality, mold, pesticides and Integrated Pest Management, asbestos, portable classrooms.
  • United Federation of Teachers
    This NY-based union for teachers and paraprofessionals has on its website publications about indoor air quality issues, including Indoor Air Quality: Straight Talk from the UFT, Molds, Lead: Straight Talk from the UFT, and Asbestos in schools. Though targeted to school staff, the material can be helpful, especially to show that adults working in schools can also be impacted by contaminants and would benefit from a healthier school as well.

INDOOR AIR QUALITY

ARSENIC IN PRESSURE-TREATED WOOD (Playgrounds)

ASBESTOS

  • Asbestos Home Page, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
    Resources on asbestos, including a link to remediation contractors by state.

CLEANING

  • Janitorial Products Pollution Prevention Program (JP4)
    This project, sponsored by US EPA, CA EPA Department of Toxic Substance Control, and regional CA governments, offers information and resources for reducing the use of toxic cleaning products in institutional settings.

LEAD

MOLD

PESTICIDES / INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT

  • California Safe Schools, a project of Community Partners

    This organization provides a model Integrated Pest Management Policy used by the Los Angeles Unified School District. They encourage other school districts around the nation to use it as a guide for creating their own IPM policy.

  • School Pesticide Use Reduction, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP)

    This page on NCAP's program includes valuable links to materials on how to reduce pesticide use in schools. NCAP also maintains a resource list of organizations across the nation that work on reducing pesticide use in schools.

  • IPM Standards for Schools: A Program for Reducing Pest and Pesticide Risks in Schools, IPM Institute of North America, Inc.

    This manual provides practical information, guidance and resources for least-toxic pest management practices in schools.

  • Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Schools, U.S. EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs

    This page provides basic IPM information and details how to get started on an IPM program, including information about EPA-funded grant programs for initiating IPM in a school.

  • STATE AND LOCAL SCHOOL PESTICIDE POLICIES , Beyond Pesticides

    A list of 33 state laws and over 400 school districts that are known to have policies or programs regarding integrated pest management, pesticide bans, and right-to-know, the site also contains information and resources for getting an IPM program started in your school.

  • Integrated Pest Management in Schools: World Wide Web Resource List , University of Florida.

    This resource list complies an extensive number of links to information about IPM in schools on the web.

OTHER

  • The Green Roundtable, Inc.

    Promotes green building projects by providing resources, training, education and consultation.

  • Healthy Building Network

    This website contains current and comprehensive resources on arsenic used in pressure-treated wood and PVC used in building materials.

  • Green Seal

    Certifies and recommends environmentally responsible products based on standards they’ve developed. Green Seal works with manufacturers, industry sectors, purchasing groups, and all levels of government.

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