"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.
"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.
"We recognize that beyond the four walls of the school building there are many environmental and social contexts that can adversely affect students’ well-being and undermine their academic potential. Inequities persist in the distribution of the social determinants of health, and students bring these influence with them every day when they walk through the doors of their school building."
Environmental injustice can't be an either/or issue of hazards inside or outside schools, it needs to be a both/and issue where hazards in schools are being addressed in conjunction with hazards outside of schools.
"The chronic impacts of a poor school environment often do not get the same type of attention as cases like these, because the links between building quality and health are subtler and less overt."
"These" is referring to a list of dramatic incidents where students were suddenly exposed to some kind of environmental hazard. This quote captures one of the biggest challenges of environmental justice work--in the many, many cases where it is not visible, it is hard to mobilize support, attention, and emotion because the links aren't flashy. This connects to ideas about slow disasters in Anthro 25A.
"Millions of K–12 students in America spend several hours a day learning in schools that are more than 50 years old and in need of extensive repair and where children may be exposed to mold, poor ventilation, uncomfortable temperatures, inadequate lighting, and overcrowded, excessively noisy conditions."
Emphasizes the scale of the issue--this is not a Philadelphia or Santa Ana or Azusa problem, it is a national issue for all public schools. Also emphasizes the breadth of the issues--there are so many different forms of environmental hazards in schools.