April 7th is National Healthy Schools Day.
Since 2002 parents, teachers, school nurses, custodians, advocates, and agencies have promoted National Healthy Schools Day activities nationwide. Whether you are at the beginning stages of investigating school environments or have an established Indoor Air/Environmental Quality program, the Healthy School Network invites you to host a local activity that educates others and celebrates your school’s successes.
National Healthy Schools Day is coordinated by Healthy Schools Network in partnership with many agencies and organizations. Together they promote the use of EPA’s IAQ Tools for Schools guidance as well as other EPA environmental health guidelines and programs for schools and children’s health.
Locally, New York State’s NYSERDA (The NYS Energy Research and Development Authority) and the NYS Education Department released NY-CHPS, comprehensive healthy and high performance school design guidelines for NYS schools. Healthy Schools Network worked to bring the NYS Education Department and NYSERDA together to create these guidelines and then served as an advisor to the project during its development.
These guidelines were adopted in 2007 and are now available at…
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/facplan/documents/NY-CHPS_Sep2007finalNYSERDA.doc
With recent news events, there is also more focus on how far a school is from railroad tracks or proposed oil pipelines, as well as gas wells.
The most basic effort lies in reducing the use of chemicals for cleaning.
“Green Cleaning” helps everyone in a school environment and can teach us about products used at home.
The New York State Integrated Pest Management program promotes healthy schools with our emphasis on IPM for schools. Reducing pests and pesticides in schools is a major factor in improving indoor air quality.
For more, follow these links: