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Thursday, April 12, 2001

7NEWS Reports: Sick Schools

Each day in Massachusetts, thousands of children unknowingly go to schools where air quality is poor. Contaminants and allergens, including dust, mold and pollutants hang in the air.

    Michael Zacharisen, MD, Professor of Pediatrics
    "It can affect their learning at school, it can affect their behavior. "

Bad school air can lead to higher rates of respiratory illness, allergies, and asthma in children.

    Beth Alberty, Asthma Patient
    "It feels like I can't breathe, and I need to cough a lot to breathe."

Once a week, individual Massachusetts schools are tested for poor air quality. Mike Feeney of the Department of Public Health carries out the test, measuring temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide. He says no school is spotless.

    Mike Feeney, Air Quality Control, BEHA, DPH
    "In many, many buildings that we've been...there's always something."

Anyone can request a school air test to be done, including parents, teachers or staff members, and even family doctors.

    Mike Feeney
    "We basically start at the peak of the roof of the building and go to the basement and try to look at everything that's inside."

Feeney investigates a number of areas, including:

  • Classroom airflow. Feeney checks univent heater systems, their filters and their fresh air intakes from outside. He even goes on the roof to make sure mechanical exhaust vents work. In many schools, fan belts are broken and motors, some 40 years old, have burned out.
  • Puddles of water on the roof and water leaks can lead to moldy ceiling tiles.

    Feeney is also concerned with:

  • proper storage of chemicals in the chemistry department and industrial arts.
  • Proper exhaust for kilns in the art department.
  • Door mats that don't trap water so mold doesn't grow.
  • Pair filters on wood shop machinery.

    Even new schools are suspect for bad air, especially when construction is ongoing.

      Suzanne Condon, Asst. Commissioner, Bureau for Environmental Health Assessment
      "You could have kids exposed to cement dust, wood dust things of that sort."

    Many school officials fill with apprehension when they see Mike Feeney coming. But some schools look upon these tests as a way to clean up their act. In Haverhill, Feeney first tested the high school 2 years ago. After the school department invested four hundred thousand dollars in mechanical upgrades, equipment and maintenance, the heating and ventilation system now operates cleanly and efficiently.

      Mike Feeney
      There's been attention paid to this and that needs to happen.

      Roger Young, Exec. Dir. of Business, Haverhill Public Schools
      "What's really heartening about all this is that they're working together as a partner to help us improve the situation for everybody."

    If you feel the air in your child's school isn't up to par, call the Department of Public Health at 617-624-5757 or call your local board of health.  


    • Sick Schools

    Segment Information

    Reported by:

    Jeff Derderian

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