Protecting Children’s Environmental Health While Re-opening Schools: Recommendations from the Healthy Schools Network

On October 28th, CHE-Alaska was joined by Claire Barnett, founder and Executive Director of the Healthy Schools Network, to discuss environmental health and justice aspects of schools re-opening across the US. We talked about a recently released collaborative playbook researched and released by the Healthy Schools Network and the NJ Work Environment Council (amongst others) in early July entitled The Pandemic v. Schools: States Must Guide Schools on Reopening, Slowing Spread of Virus.

Children are especially vulnerable to chemical exposures and adverse health outcomes from exposures to contaminants, breathing more air, ingesting more food, and having a greater surface area relative to their body mass and volume. A child’s growth and development makes them more susceptible to toxic chemicals (e.g. lead in drinking water harming brain development), and their unique behavior can bring them into more prolonged contact with toxic chemicals in the indoor environment of homes and schools, as well as playgrounds, parks, and lawns where they play outdoors.  

With our children’s health in mind, it is important to carefully consider how to safely open and operate schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Updating cleaning protocols to use  least toxic disinfectants, reconsidering IPM, and improving and maintaining ventilation systems are just some of the steps included in comprehensive plans for improving the health of our nation’s schools. This is especially important to consider for under-funded schools where children, teachers, and staff would be disproportionately affected by re-opening of the facilities without other modifications.   

This is not just an issue for children. Roughly 20% of the US population enters a school during a typical weekday, and the same protocols should also have the health of teachers, staff, families and the surrounding community in mind. Opening schools during a pandemic can put a significant portion of our population at risk, so a well-researched and thoughtful plan is needed.   

The Healthy Schools Network has grown to be ‘the nation’s premier voice for children’s environmental health at school by advancing a comprehensive policy agenda, fostering state and local environmental health coalitions across the country, and securing landmark reforms in states and federally. We’ll discuss recommendations and guidelines compiled by the Healthy Schools Network to be applied at the federal, state, and local levels. The guidelines are intended to be shared with elected officials, families, teachers, and other school staff and include a call to action for health professionals and others to educate and encourage their implementation.