Air Quality Legislation Passes, Enforces Stricter Health Mandates For Classrooms

By Larissa Lytwyn

The June 2003 enactment of House Bill 6426, an Act Concerning Indoor Air Quality in Schools, now mandates stricter building and maintenance policies in classrooms statewide.

But for Newtown resident Joellen Lawson, who was a special education teacher at McKinley Elementary School in Fairfield from 1991 to 1998, the passage comes more than a decade too late.

Ms Lawson, a physically active individual who enjoyed taking aerobic and yoga classes three times a week, first began experiencing mental fatigue, headaches, and a chronic cough during the 1992–1993 school year. During the next few years, her hair and eyelashes began to fall out and in 1995 her coughing became so violent that she herniated a disk. In 1998, shortly after being assigned a classroom with closets full of mold-covered teaching materials soaked by rainwater from a leaky roof, Ms Lawson began experiencing intense vertigo, vomiting, and diarrhea. After 23 years in education, she was forced to accept a disability retirement at the age of 46.

After ruling out the possibility of lupus and other conditions, Dr John Santilli, presently head of the Allergy Associates of Fairfield County, finally provided an accurate diagnosis: permanent health damages caused by exposure to highly toxic mold levels. In October 2000, severely mold-damaged McKinley closed its doors permanently. That year, US Rep Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill to Congress that could provide assistance for school construction and renovations, including remediation for safety and health hazards. Using the US Environmental Protection Agency’s IAQ Tools for Schools program as a guide, the state introduced a bill recommending annual testing for radon levels, pesticide usage, and other possible toxins in school buildings.

“If that bill doesn’t go through, believe me, they will hear a lot more from me, from other teachers and staff, and from the parents of students who have become ill,” said Ms Lawson in a 2000 Newtown Bee article.

The proposal died on the House floor.

True to her word, over the next two legislative sessions Ms Lawson fulfilled her promise. In July 2002, after being trained in grassroots activism by the New England-based Toxics Action Center, she formed the Canary Committee, an organization whose core membership included several teachers affected by the disabling effects of mold contamination at McKinley and elsewhere.

On March 7, 2003, 30 members of the Canary Committee, including nine children, testified at a public hearing at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. Ms Lawson credits the increasing number of legislators who were able to witness first-hand the devastating effects of mold contamination on people. “I wish we had been able to have a formal press conference,” said Ms Lawson, who heralded the news through a print statement. “Still, I have been getting calls from all over the nation. The Canary Committee, and other organizations that worked with us, have the ability to educate the public. We must continue to be a model of environmental responsibility for our communities.”

Despite its three prior failures, Senator John McKinney (R-Fairfield) said that the bill’s passage was relatively quick. “Getting through the legislative process can take a while,” he said. “Some of the problems the bill had in the beginning were based on litigation concerns,” he said. Later, he continued, lawmakers found a longstanding statute providing whistle-blower protection that applied to teachers, parents, and children exposing a school’s toxic hazards. “Also, there is no set national standard on what level of toxicity is hazardous,” he said.

While there is still much research to be done in determining accurate mold assessment methodology, as well as the establishment of a high-toxic standard, Dr Santilli says that the issue is being discussed more frequently by clinicians and the general public. In a report on the health effects of mold exposure in public schools, the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) declared that 68 percent of the schools in the state have an air quality problem, and many of the teachers, students, and staff complain of allergic symptoms.

Dr Santilli also cites a study estimating that asthma symptoms increased ten to 30 percent in children ages 8 to 18 for every increase of 1,000 spores per square millimeter in the environment. “Approximately 20 percent of the national population spends their days in our elementary and secondary schools,” he said. Studies, he continued, show that half of these 115,000 institutions have problems linked to indoor air quality.

Dr Santilli says that flat roofs built during the 1960s and 1970s create pools of rain and melting snow that can eventually cause leakage. “It is extremely expensive to renovate and perform remediation in schools,” said Ms Lawson.

In Newtown, the issued was raised this year after the newly constructed Reed Intermediate School experienced a water leak in early March. Later that month, about 150 students visited the nurse complaining of rashes and itchiness. The symptoms continued and worsened after April vacation. Five female students suffering from dizziness, nausea, headaches, sore throats, and fatigue were eventually schooled at Newtown Middle School for the remainder of the school year.

Gil Cormier, industrial hygienist of Occupational Risk Services, is in the process of testing the school for any hazardous levels of toxins, including mold.

Dominic Posca, the school district’s supervisor of buildings and grounds, says that the district is in complete compliance with the bill’s new mandates. “We test the structural durability and maintenance of our buildings several times during the school year,” he said. Mr Posca also heads an indoor air quality committee recently required by the legislative mandate that he says has already been in existence for over a year. The committee includes parents, teachers, and administrators including Superintendent of Schools Evan Pitkoff and Financial Director Ronald Bienkowski.

Other requirements of the new law ensure that all materials used for roofing systems meet the standards of the American Society for Testing and Materials, and that all schools built or renovated since January must be uniformly inspected and evaluated prior to January 2008.

“The silver lining of this entire experience,” said Ms Lawson, “is that there is a greater awareness of the issues we are dealing with.”

Currently, Ms Lawson is in the process of expanding the Canary Committee and renaming it the Connecticut Foundation for Environmentally Safe Schools. As a fully recognized nonprofit organization, Ms Lawson said that the foundation will be dedicated to meeting with parents, school faculty, and administration to increase understanding about environmental hazards in public schools.

“Many buildings have already outlived their shelf life,” she said. “Now, we can finally start doing something about it.”