District winning indoor air pollution war
Published 11:27 am Friday, February 22, 2008
The air is clear in the Everett School District, thanks to the trailblazing efforts of the maintenance staff.
District director of maintenance and operations Gary Jefferis, and a team of more than 100 district custodians, have worked for the past few years to create a district-wide system to keep students and staff healthy that did not exist a decade ago.
The result has been an award-winning project that has been presented at national air quality conferences and shared with school districts across the state.
The story begins eight years ago with North Middle School. Students and staff members were complaining of watery eyes and general bad health. Upon further investigation, Jefferis and several custodians determined the ’70s-style building, created to conserve energy, had poor ventilation. Ready and willing to work towards a solution for the school, Jefferis began researching what the “permissible exposure limits,” (PEL’s,) or a proper indoor environment, for young people entailed. What he found was standards for adult, male factory workers – not young students in a classroom.
“In a classroom it’s about health, learning and performance, and in a factory it’s just a health issue,” Jefferis said. “Kids can breathe seven times more than we do; they use about the same volume of air, but they are working harder and more often to do it, so you could say they are exposed to more allergens than adults.”
No agencies specializing in air quality would commit to what’s appropriate for a young person’s learning environment, Jefferis added.
Still, Jefferis and the maintenance staff were undeterred. With help from the Snohomish County and state health departments, Jefferis and his custodial crew began to create a model for an “indoor environment conducive to learning.”
“It was all new to us,” Jefferis said, “but it’s our job in the maintenance department to provide a safe place for the students and staff in this district.”
To make the general population more comfortable, the district stays in line with the lowest PEL’s of allergens and contaminates set for adults, as well as significantly low levels of “stressors” such as cat and dog dander.
Custodians also now use mainly “green-label” cleaners to disinfect and clean schools and offices, and have replaced the common fiberglass air filters with the new cloth pleated filters. Those filters are changed three times a year in every building to maintain a neutral indoor air quality.
Because everyone reacts differently to some stressors, keeping a high standard of air quality can be a case-by-case job. Jefferis and the custodial crew have gone so far as to replace carpeting or adjust the humidity in specific classrooms in some cases. And sometimes, it’s just a matter of figuring out what new allergen has been brought into the environment.
“People can even be affected by an aerosol glue that another teacher down the hall used the day before … sometimes you just have to investigate where the problem’s coming from,” Jefferis said.
The district’s model for indoor air quality in classrooms has won several awards in the past few years including a certificate of recognition in 2000 and a National Excellence Award in 2001 from the Environmental Protection Agency for indoor air quality. Jefferis also presented the model in Canada and at the world symposium of indoor air quality at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. Jefferis also has shared the model with several school districts across the state.
The project, Jefferis said, also has set a new standard for the Everett School District’s maintenance department.
“It’s shown us what we can really do,” Jefferis said.
Tim Hardin, air quality manager for the state of Washington, said the model also has made a positive impact on districts state-wide.
“It’s really done a lot to make people aware that a pro-active approach is much easier than people think,” Hardin said. “And, it’s cheaper to be proactive rather than to react after there’s a problem.”
