The hidden hazards in school hallways

[Guest guest]

The hidden hazards in school hallways

Globe survey reveals many buildings are neglected, contaminated with

mould

CAROLINE ALPHONSO

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail- Toronto,Ontario,Canada

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070123.wxschools

enviro23/BNStory/National/home/?pageRequested=all

Not that there's anything wrong with a hockey arena -- this is

Canada, after all -- but the students of Presentation Junior High

are discovering that, as a school, the Pepsi Centre rink leaves

something to be desired.

Mould forced nearly 400 students out of their school, located in

Corner Brook, Nfld., last month and into an arena where their

makeshift classrooms are separated by curtains, not concrete walls.

And while some hockey players or figure skaters may enjoy added ice

time, Nick Fleming is not impressed.

" There's never any silence, that's my biggest issue, " says 14-year-

old Nick, who has since bought a pair of earplugs to block out the

noise.

His other issue is more troubling: Without a parent's complaints

about mould in the school's basement, there would have been no

investigation and the building would still be open.

" The thing is, they don't regularly check . . . for mould, " says

Nick, a Grade 9 student. " It's pretty scary to know that I've been

going to this school for three years and they're only finding mould

in there now. "

Presentation Junior High, built in the 1960s, is one of many schools

across the country that have exposed children to poor air quality,

mould and other environmental threats.

Twelve of the 74 school boards that responded to The Globe and Mail

survey did not fill out the section on physical environment,

indicating that they didn't know what was happening in their schools

or would not divulge the information.

The Globe survey also revealed:

41 per cent of responding boards said they had at least one reported

case of mould in their schools in the 12 months prior to the end of

the last academic year; 26 per cent did not respond;

43 per cent reported air-quality complaints over that time; 30 per

cent did not respond;

23 per cent had positive tests for hazardous substances in the

water; 28 per cent did not respond;

28 per cent reported infestations; 34 per cent did not respond.

These are red-flag findings: Poor environment is not only a

detriment to children's health but affects academic performance as

well.

" We know that kids are a lot more sensitive than adults, so if

anything, we've got to spend even more time to make sure that these

schools are cleaner, " says Tang Lee, an environmental design

professor at the University of Calgary.

In Newfoundland, Presentation Junior High is scheduled to reopen in

the first week of February, but it's not the only school in Corner

Brook that has had to shut its doors. Humber Elementary relocated

pupils to neighbourhood schools last month after a teacher detected

an odour in her class; the school board found mould in the walls and

ceiling.

Ross Elliott, director of education for the Western School District,

tries to ease fears. " It's a challenge, no doubt from every

perspective. But . . . each case has its own set of circumstances, "

he says. " One of the challenges here is not to assume that because

these two things occurred at the same time, that all 75 of your

buildings are in jeopardy. Because they are not. "

Provincial governments argue that they are pouring more money into

school maintenance budgets. School boards counter that it's not

nearly enough to deal with their million-dollar maintenance

backlogs -- and the outcome is clear.

Bob , president of the CUPE Local 40 for Calgary's public

schools, takes a Globe reporter on tour, striding down the dark

hallways to uncover what lurks behind the benign-looking surfaces.

He spots brown water patches on the ceiling in the library, climbs

onto a bookcase and pulls the tile down -- revealing rings of black

mould.

" That's always good, " he says sarcastically.

This has become an all-too-common sight for Mr. , who

elsewhere points out water-stained ceilings, shoddy roofs, decaying

window frames with green fungus growing around them -- a

particularly sad situation in Alberta, among the most prosperous

jurisdictions in North America.

" Ralph paid off the mortgage, but the house is falling down, " Mr.

says bluntly of former premier Ralph Klein. " These schools

haven't been maintained and now they're worn out. "

A large sign in the hallway of another Calgary school warns: " Do not

enter -- leaky roof. " At another school, the mouldy ceiling tile is

not limited to the library: Mr. steps into a classroom and

points upward.

" There's one, " he says about a brown water patch. " There's another

one. " He pauses. " There's another leak there. "

Mr. doesn't want the schools identified for fear that the

caretakers could be reprimanded for allowing a reporter in. The

Calgary public schools came under the microscope in the last

academic year as students were shuffled into hallways and libraries

because of leaky roofs. One school closed its doors for fear of its

roof collapsing.

" The government has a lot of money, " Mr. concludes. " They

should start spending it. "

A spokeswoman for the province's Education Department says about

$200-million is being pumped into schools this year for

infrastructure maintenance, but is evasive when asked about

Calgary's backlog of $466-million. And while thankful for any new

money, Dieter Hoerz, director of facility operations at the board,

says the impact won't be noticeable.

" In any one of them you're going to find something that belongs to

the deferred maintenance list. I'm not sure you'd find any board

anywhere that doesn't have all of these issues to varying degrees. "

Studies in the United States and Europe make the stakes plain: Poor

indoor air quality causes lower concentration levels and illness

requiring absence from school.

Prof. Lee says corporations have been quick to recognize that fact,

and acted upon it. Schools haven't.

" I try to think, 'Are people really evil and bad that they don't

care about kids?' I don't think so. I think the people in

administration and the people in the school board are just worried

about their own positions. They don't want to be threatened that

they're not doing their job and so they would rather hide it. "

Prof. Lee, who has tested the air in a number of Canadian schools,

says they don't all have poor environments. But many, especially the

older ones, have been neglected. Unlike a house where you attend to

the structure regularly, in schools, " the only time they do

something is when there is a leak, " he says.

Oudyk, an occupational hygienist for the Occupational Health

Clinics for Ontario Workers in Hamilton, who has done school air-

quality tests, heartily agrees.

" Schools in general have the worst air quality of any buildings that

we've been asked to evaluate when compared to offices and places

like that, " he says. The ventilation systems in most schools are

old, while others rely on crumbling windows and leaky building to

supply children with outdoor air.

Mr. Oudyk's team was called to a school in his area two years ago

because two teachers with classrooms opposite each other had

children with the same birth defects.

An evaluation revealed that classrooms were receiving insufficient

air. Students and teachers were tired, had frequent headaches and

suffered nose and eye irritations. His team recommended that the

ventilation system be replaced to have forced outdoor air blowing

into the classroom -- although they still haven't figured out what

caused the birth defects.

" Schools have to spend money on maintenance, full stop, " says

Bartlett, associate professor at the University of British

Columbia's school of occupational and environment hygiene. " If you

back off on maintenance in any way, then you are going to have

problems. "

Increasing numbers of children have asthma, and while there's no

evidence that mould is the only cause of this respiratory problem,

an unclean school will only aggravate the condition, Prof. Bartlett

says.

" We've come to this point where everyone's wondering where this

mould has come from. Like it's some kind of alien invasion. It's

not. What it is, is schools suffering from not having the money to

fix things when they go wrong. "

Reynolds rifles through a stack of reports 15 centimetres

high.

Sitting at her kitchen table, Ms. Reynolds, a member of the Toronto

Parent Network, reads about a school where there's a wasp problem in

Room 343 and black mould by the entrance to Room 102; the air

quality in Room 143 is marked as " very poor, " and the windows are

rotting in many of the other rooms.

At another school, there's asbestos-insulation damage in Room 111.

Yet another has mould in the shower of the boys change room, broken

floor tiles in one portable.

Ms. Reynolds's task is to sift through the Toronto District School

Board's health and safety records to produce a review of the school

environment. She got involved two years ago after her son would run

home to use the washroom because the one in school was foul.

Little has changed since the group started producing its report five

years ago, she says. She fears the lack of government funding means

the problems in schools are never really fixed, only held together

with Band-Aids.

" If you had exposed asbestos somewhere in your house, would you

go, 'Oh, it's okay, we'll just file a work order?' You would freak.

And if you found a mouse in your house, you wouldn't think it's

okay, " Ms. Reynolds says. " I wonder how long things sit unfixed in

schools. "

Ms. Reynolds's report has been controversial in Toronto -- board

officials say it paints an unfair picture of their schools.

Sheila Penny, executive superintendent of facility services at the

board, insists the city's schools are safe. The board faces a $996-

million backlog for major renewal. But if there is a mould, asbestos

or air-quality problem, she says, it is attended to right away.

Still, she acknowledges that the buildings require significant

attention.

" We are using the renewal grants that we get. We're stretching them

as far as we can. So we never replace a whole roof. We will replace

the sections of the roof that have the greatest deterioration. "

Ms. Penny, an architect, says the school board can't do much more.

" We will come to a point where there has to be funding for a

significant rebuild program in school infrastructure, " she says. " I

believe that given the state of our infrastructure, the age of our

buildings, the importance of education in our society, that

eventually this city will come to that realization as well. "

About the survey

When The Globe set out to create its survey on the health of

Canadian schools, it consulted the Strategic Counsel. The Toronto-

based market researchers provided a randomly selected sample of 139

publicly funded school boards across the country, based on student

population in each province, toward the end of the past academic

year. The survey was extensive, with questions ranging from how many

schools sold pop to how many experienced cases of mould in their

buildings.

Many were eager to participate and completed the survey in a matter

of days. Others balked.

" I am afraid I just don't have time to complete it, " one school

board official e-mailed. Another wrote, " We unfortunately won't be

able to complete it -- the information is very detailed and differs

with each school, and we don't collect it centrally at all. "

In all, The Globe was able to analyze data from 74 boards across the

country.

With a report from Rick Cash and Liana Giovando

Series schedule

Jan 20: The nutritional wasteland of school lunchrooms

Yesterday: The phys. ed. factor -- why running is as important as

reading

Today: The environmental hazards in school halls

On globeandmail.com

See the results for the 74 school boards analyzed by The Globe and

Mail, read the full series as it unfolds and view a photo gallery.

[Guest guest]

Thanx KC!!!!!

I needed that article. Lost everyone of mine w/the computer problem. Need

these for our district here. They come in handy when I have meetings w/them.

Thanx,

[] The hidden hazards in school hallways

The hidden hazards in school hallways

Globe survey reveals many buildings are neglected, contaminated with

mould

CAROLINE ALPHONSO

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail- Toronto,Ontario,Canada

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070123.wxschools

enviro23/BNStory/National/home/?pageRequested=all

Not that there's anything wrong with a hockey arena -- this is

Canada, after all -- but the students of Presentation Junior High

are discovering that, as a school, the Pepsi Centre rink leaves

something to be desired.

Mould forced nearly 400 students out of their school, located in

Corner Brook, Nfld., last month and into an arena where their

makeshift classrooms are separated by curtains, not concrete walls.

And while some hockey players or figure skaters may enjoy added ice

time, Nick Fleming is not impressed.

" There's never any silence, that's my biggest issue, " says 14-year-

old Nick, who has since bought a pair of earplugs to block out the

noise.

His other issue is more troubling: Without a parent's complaints

about mould in the school's basement, there would have been no

investigation and the building would still be open.

" The thing is, they don't regularly check . . . for mould, " says

Nick, a Grade 9 student. " It's pretty scary to know that I've been

going to this school for three years and they're only finding mould

in there now. "

Presentation Junior High, built in the 1960s, is one of many schools

across the country that have exposed children to poor air quality,

mould and other environmental threats.

Twelve of the 74 school boards that responded to The Globe and Mail

survey did not fill out the section on physical environment,

indicating that they didn't know what was happening in their schools

or would not divulge the information.

The Globe survey also revealed:

41 per cent of responding boards said they had at least one reported

case of mould in their schools in the 12 months prior to the end of

the last academic year; 26 per cent did not respond;

43 per cent reported air-quality complaints over that time; 30 per

cent did not respond;

23 per cent had positive tests for hazardous substances in the

water; 28 per cent did not respond;

28 per cent reported infestations; 34 per cent did not respond.

These are red-flag findings: Poor environment is not only a

detriment to children's health but affects academic performance as

well.

" We know that kids are a lot more sensitive than adults, so if

anything, we've got to spend even more time to make sure that these

schools are cleaner, " says Tang Lee, an environmental design

professor at the University of Calgary.

In Newfoundland, Presentation Junior High is scheduled to reopen in

the first week of February, but it's not the only school in Corner

Brook that has had to shut its doors. Humber Elementary relocated

pupils to neighbourhood schools last month after a teacher detected

an odour in her class; the school board found mould in the walls and

ceiling.

Ross Elliott, director of education for the Western School District,

tries to ease fears. " It's a challenge, no doubt from every

perspective. But . . . each case has its own set of circumstances, "

he says. " One of the challenges here is not to assume that because

these two things occurred at the same time, that all 75 of your

buildings are in jeopardy. Because they are not. "

Provincial governments argue that they are pouring more money into

school maintenance budgets. School boards counter that it's not

nearly enough to deal with their million-dollar maintenance

backlogs -- and the outcome is clear.

Bob , president of the CUPE Local 40 for Calgary's public

schools, takes a Globe reporter on tour, striding down the dark

hallways to uncover what lurks behind the benign-looking surfaces.

He spots brown water patches on the ceiling in the library, climbs

onto a bookcase and pulls the tile down -- revealing rings of black

mould.

" That's always good, " he says sarcastically.

This has become an all-too-common sight for Mr. , who

elsewhere points out water-stained ceilings, shoddy roofs, decaying

window frames with green fungus growing around them -- a

particularly sad situation in Alberta, among the most prosperous

jurisdictions in North America.

" Ralph paid off the mortgage, but the house is falling down, " Mr.

says bluntly of former premier Ralph Klein. " These schools

haven't been maintained and now they're worn out. "

A large sign in the hallway of another Calgary school warns: " Do not

enter -- leaky roof. " At another school, the mouldy ceiling tile is

not limited to the library: Mr. steps into a classroom and

points upward.

" There's one, " he says about a brown water patch. " There's another

one. " He pauses. " There's another leak there. "

Mr. doesn't want the schools identified for fear that the

caretakers could be reprimanded for allowing a reporter in. The

Calgary public schools came under the microscope in the last

academic year as students were shuffled into hallways and libraries

because of leaky roofs. One school closed its doors for fear of its

roof collapsing.

" The government has a lot of money, " Mr. concludes. " They

should start spending it. "

A spokeswoman for the province's Education Department says about

$200-million is being pumped into schools this year for

infrastructure maintenance, but is evasive when asked about

Calgary's backlog of $466-million. And while thankful for any new

money, Dieter Hoerz, director of facility operations at the board,

says the impact won't be noticeable.

" In any one of them you're going to find something that belongs to

the deferred maintenance list. I'm not sure you'd find any board

anywhere that doesn't have all of these issues to varying degrees. "

Studies in the United States and Europe make the stakes plain: Poor

indoor air quality causes lower concentration levels and illness

requiring absence from school.

Prof. Lee says corporations have been quick to recognize that fact,

and acted upon it. Schools haven't.

" I try to think, 'Are people really evil and bad that they don't

care about kids?' I don't think so. I think the people in

administration and the people in the school board are just worried

about their own positions. They don't want to be threatened that

they're not doing their job and so they would rather hide it. "

Prof. Lee, who has tested the air in a number of Canadian schools,

says they don't all have poor environments. But many, especially the

older ones, have been neglected. Unlike a house where you attend to

the structure regularly, in schools, " the only time they do

something is when there is a leak, " he says.

Oudyk, an occupational hygienist for the Occupational Health

Clinics for Ontario Workers in Hamilton, who has done school air-

quality tests, heartily agrees.

" Schools in general have the worst air quality of any buildings that

we've been asked to evaluate when compared to offices and places

like that, " he says. The ventilation systems in most schools are

old, while others rely on crumbling windows and leaky building to

supply children with outdoor air.

Mr. Oudyk's team was called to a school in his area two years ago

because two teachers with classrooms opposite each other had

children with the same birth defects.

An evaluation revealed that classrooms were receiving insufficient

air. Students and teachers were tired, had frequent headaches and

suffered nose and eye irritations. His team recommended that the

ventilation system be replaced to have forced outdoor air blowing

into the classroom -- although they still haven't figured out what

caused the birth defects.

" Schools have to spend money on maintenance, full stop, " says

Bartlett, associate professor at the University of British

Columbia's school of occupational and environment hygiene. " If you

back off on maintenance in any way, then you are going to have

problems. "

Increasing numbers of children have asthma, and while there's no

evidence that mould is the only cause of this respiratory problem,

an unclean school will only aggravate the condition, Prof. Bartlett

says.

" We've come to this point where everyone's wondering where this

mould has come from. Like it's some kind of alien invasion. It's

not. What it is, is schools suffering from not having the money to

fix things when they go wrong. "

Reynolds rifles through a stack of reports 15 centimetres

high.

Sitting at her kitchen table, Ms. Reynolds, a member of the Toronto

Parent Network, reads about a school where there's a wasp problem in

Room 343 and black mould by the entrance to Room 102; the air

quality in Room 143 is marked as " very poor, " and the windows are

rotting in many of the other rooms.

At another school, there's asbestos-insulation damage in Room 111.

Yet another has mould in the shower of the boys change room, broken

floor tiles in one portable.

Ms. Reynolds's task is to sift through the Toronto District School

Board's health and safety records to produce a review of the school

environment. She got involved two years ago after her son would run

home to use the washroom because the one in school was foul.

Little has changed since the group started producing its report five

years ago, she says. She fears the lack of government funding means

the problems in schools are never really fixed, only held together

with Band-Aids.

" If you had exposed asbestos somewhere in your house, would you

go, 'Oh, it's okay, we'll just file a work order?' You would freak.

And if you found a mouse in your house, you wouldn't think it's

okay, " Ms. Reynolds says. " I wonder how long things sit unfixed in

schools. "

Ms. Reynolds's report has been controversial in Toronto -- board

officials say it paints an unfair picture of their schools.

Sheila Penny, executive superintendent of facility services at the

board, insists the city's schools are safe. The board faces a $996-

million backlog for major renewal. But if there is a mould, asbestos

or air-quality problem, she says, it is attended to right away.

Still, she acknowledges that the buildings require significant

attention.

" We are using the renewal grants that we get. We're stretching them

as far as we can. So we never replace a whole roof. We will replace

the sections of the roof that have the greatest deterioration. "

Ms. Penny, an architect, says the school board can't do much more.

" We will come to a point where there has to be funding for a

significant rebuild program in school infrastructure, " she says. " I

believe that given the state of our infrastructure, the age of our

buildings, the importance of education in our society, that

eventually this city will come to that realization as well. "

About the survey

When The Globe set out to create its survey on the health of

Canadian schools, it consulted the Strategic Counsel. The Toronto-

based market researchers provided a randomly selected sample of 139

publicly funded school boards across the country, based on student

population in each province, toward the end of the past academic

year. The survey was extensive, with questions ranging from how many

schools sold pop to how many experienced cases of mould in their

buildings.

Many were eager to participate and completed the survey in a matter

of days. Others balked.

" I am afraid I just don't have time to complete it, " one school

board official e-mailed. Another wrote, " We unfortunately won't be

able to complete it -- the information is very detailed and differs

with each school, and we don't collect it centrally at all. "

In all, The Globe was able to analyze data from 74 boards across the

country.

With a report from Rick Cash and Liana Giovando

Series schedule

Jan 20: The nutritional wasteland of school lunchrooms

Yesterday: The phys. ed. factor -- why running is as important as

reading

Today: The environmental hazards in school halls

On globeandmail.com

See the results for the 74 school boards analyzed by The Globe and

Mail, read the full series as it unfolds and view a photo gallery.