Healthy Schools Campaign

Free Webinar 11/15: How to Create a Cleaner Fleet of School Buses with an EPA Rebate

It's no secret that while school buses are one of the safest ways of getting to school, the emissions of  older, dirty diesel engines can pose a risk to children's growing bodies. 

A few of our past blogs:

• Dangers of School Bus Idling: Myth or Fact?
• How Healthy Is The Air on the Yellow School Bus? 

And while there are many easy steps to reducing exposure, one of the most effective ways of handling this is through a retrofit of existing bus engines. 

Lucky for us, EPA just announced a rebate program for retrofitting bus engines with cleaner technology!

There's a free webinar coming up. Check it out:

When: November 15 at 2 p.m. EST

Where: Visit https://epa.connectsolutions.com/schoolbusrebates (select "Enter As Guest") or call in using: 866-299-3188 and the code 3327333#. 

Interested in learning more? The National Clean Diesel Campaign has set up an informational page about the rebate program here. 

School Bus Idling Dangers: Myth or Fact?

Photo by @ bsabarnowl

It's back to school time, which also means that more school buses are back on the road. An estimated 25 million children ride school buses every day. But when school buses idle with children on board or nearby, the resulting pollution can be harmful to kids' growing bodies. In sufficient concentrations and duration, these pollutants can even increase the chance of serious health effects such as asthma. Our friends at the EPA have pulled together a "myth-busting" list of facts and encourage us all to test our knowledge of school bus idling.

Myth #1:
It is important to warm up engines with a long idle period, especially in cold weather.

Fact:
For today's school bus engines, bus and engine manufacturers routinely suggest a warm up time of less than five minutes.

Myth #2:
It is better for an engine to run at low speed (idling) than to run at regular speed.

Fact:
Running an engine at low speed causes twice the wear on internal parts as driving at regular speeds.

Myth #3:
The engine must be kept running in order to operate the school bus safety equipment (flashing lights, stop sign). It is impossible to run this equipment off the internal circuitry of the bus because the battery will run down.

Fact:
By re-wiring circuitry, safety equipment can be operated without the engine running for up to an hour with no ill-effects on the electrical system of the bus.

Myth #4:
Idling is necessary to keep the cabin comfortable.

Fact:
Depending on the weather, many buses will maintain a comfortable interior temperature for some time without idling. Idling is not an efficient way to keep the cabin warm. Bus routes should be timed so children and drivers do not need to spend a lot of extra time on the bus when it is not en route, particularly in hot or cold weather. In addition, auxiliary heaters can be purchased and installed to keep the cabin comfortable.

Myth #5:
It is better to just leave the engine idling because a "cold start" produces more pollution.

Fact:
A recent EPA study found that the emissions measured after a schoolbus is restarted contains less carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants than if the school bus idled continuously over a 10-minute period. The analysis indicated that continuous idling for more than three minutes emits more fine particles (soot) than a restart.

For more information about school bus idling, including EPA's Clean School Bus program, visit http://www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/antiidling.htm.

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Read on! An HSC intern researches the dangers of school bus idling in this post.

A Look at Toxic Schools with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta

CNN’s “CNN Presents” recently shed light on school indoor air quality during their Toxic Schools segment.

The presentation spotlights different stakeholders including parents, students, and teachers who were adversely affected by mold, dust, carcinogens, and chemicals. Parents discussed how their children experienced headaches and breathing problems as a result of their school facilities. Most alarming, the special revealed that an estimated one-third of public schools have air quality that causes respiratory problems for children.

Protection from Filth by Clark from Afton, VA

Aside from causing persistent health issues, exposure to these conditions also caused students to miss school, inhibiting their ability to learn and succeed. For instance, nine-year-old Matthew Asselin missed 53 days of school as a result of frequent hospitals visits and recovery.

Toxic Schools also highlights that while schools serve as academic institutions for students, they are work environments for faculty and staff. The segment references a 2010 National Association of School Nurse survey that estimates that health of 40 percent of students and staff are adversely affected by school environments. Joellen Lawson, a former Connecticut special education teacher spotlighted in this presentation, was diagnosed with a debilitating respiratory disease as a result of constant exposure to mold. Again, unhealthy school facilities adversely affect student learning when an educator’s ability to teach is inhibited.

Through Your Lens, a photography contest and exhibition that HSC presents in partnership with Critical Exposure and the 21st Century School Fund, creates opportunities to spotlight school facilities and the impact they have on learning. The photo submissions showcase a wide spectrum of school environments both good and bad, but the message is clear: students and teachers deserve a healthy school environment in which they can learn, work and succeed.

Broken Window by Ian from Baltimore, MD

We encourage you to raise your voice on school indoor air quality. Tell Congress to fix schools in need of repair as part of its jobs-creation effort. Learn more about the Fix America’s Schools Today (FAST) Billand send a letter to your Senators and Representative at www.fixamericasschoolstoday.org.

View Toxic Schools Part 1 and Part 2 online at CNN. 

These stories and those investigated by CNN remind us that every child deserves a healthy school environment.

Thank you to CNN for taking an in-depth look at this issue. 

Did you watch the special presentation? What are your thoughts?

 

School Indoor Air Quality in the Spotlight this Weekend with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta

One of the most basic promises of a school building is that it will provide a safe environment where students and teachers can focus on learning. Very simply, the school environment should not put students’ health at risk. But what happens when schools fall into disrepair and no longer fulfill that promise?

This weekend, CNN will bring much-needed attention to the issue of indoor air quality in schools, exploring the ways this widespread and often overlooked problem affects kids’ health and their long-term academic success. In this segment, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta will visit schools across the country to examine the impact of poor indoor air quality.

Check out this behind-the-scenes preview:

For the past several years, HSC has partnered with Critical Exposure and the 21st Century School Fund to present Through Your Lens, a photo contest and exhibit in which students and teachers share photos of their school buildings. One of the most striking impressions from the photos is that so many schools need so many basic repairs to address issues -- from leaky roofs to moldy walls -- that affect the quality of the air students and staff breathe every day.

While this is a massive issue, it’s one that is often overlooked -- especially at budget time. The national backlog for this type of school repair is estimated to be in the range of $200 billion, a number that’s expected to grow as states and school districts face shrinking budgets and postpone facility repairs rather than cut classroom budgets.

What can you do? We encourage you to join us in leveraging this opportunity to make a difference in the air children breathe in our nation’s schools:

• Watch CNN’s segment this weekend and join the conversation online. It will air this Saturday, January 14 at 8 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. EST, and again this Sunday, January 15 at  8 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. EST.  Then raise your voice to tell CNN and the online community how important this issue is. You can share your reactions via Twitter (to @cnnpresents or @sanjayguptacnn) or online at www.CNN.com. 

• Tell Congress to fix schools in need of repair as part of its jobs-creation effort. The Fix America’s Schools Today (FAST) Bill would provide funding for much-needed school repairs while creating jobs in sectors especially hard-hit by the economy. Learn more and send a letter to your Senators and Representative at www.fixamericasschoolstoday.org.

• Check out student and teacher photos in Through Your Lens. This striking collection of images shows the reality of schools in need of repair; it also shows the potential of safe, healthy schools that support learning, including many older buildings that have simply been well-maintained over the years. See the photos at www.throughyourlens.org.

Safe, healthy indoor air is a simple and fundamental part of a good learning environment. We’re looking forward to the segment this weekend and applaud CNN and advocates across the nation who are working to bring attention to this critical issue.

Cost, Value and Environmental Health

By Sarah Rosenberg, HSC intern

For as long as people have been fighting for more strict standards for pollution and the use of toxic chemicals, opponents have argued that it’s unnecessarily expensive. But how much does business as usual really cost? 

Judging by a recent study from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the answer might be tens of billions more than we had ever imagined. 

Researchers announced that, in 2008 alone, children’s health problems associated with exposure to air pollution and toxic chemicals cost the nation $76 billion in medical bills and lost productivity. Such health issues include autism, ADD, asthma, mental disabilities, childhood cancers, and lead/mercury exposure. 

It certainly gives a new meaning to “unnecessarily expensive.” These conditions are often preventable: enhanced regulation of pollution and toxic substances can limit children’s exposure. Since our 56 million students spend the majority of their time at schools, it’s important to make sure that they are a healthy place for kids to be. Too often, though, this is not the case. 

Air quality in particular is an issue, both inside and outside of schools. On the inside, the use of pesticides and chemical cleaners, exacerbated by poor ventilation, exposes children to toxic substances and aggravates asthma. Green cleaning is a straightforward and effective way to address some of these issues, and it gets results. 

As for the outside, the location of the school has a major impact on the health of students and staff, too. Most recently, this was confirmed by a recent study from the University of Michigan, which concluded that Michigan schools in areas with higher levels of pollution had higher levels of absenteeism, an indicator of health issues. However, only five states have laws requiring schools to consider air pollution and other environmental health issues when building a new school. As a result, far too many schools do end up in areas that lead to more unhealthy exposures than we would like for our children. 

The good news is that there is a lot of work that is being done on these issues. Vermont recently became the tenth state to pass a statewide green cleaning law, and several other states are considering similar proposals this year. A lot more attention is also being paid to ventilation in school design.  And, as we wrote about in a blog earlier this year, the EPA recently released the first national guidelines for school siting – they are voluntary guidelines, but it’s a commendable first step. 

Of course, more is needed on both fronts. The effects of pollution and the use of toxic chemicals are often all too easy to dismiss – we can’t see it, and the health problems they cause can seem distant and disconnected. This new finding, though, makes it harder to ignore: even for an economy as large as ours, $76 billion is no small sum. Improving environmental standards may not be free, but failing to act is costing us.

How Healthy Is the Air on the Yellow School Bus?

by Austin Sears, HSC intern

When I was little, riding the bus was one of my absolute favorite things about going to school. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, so school buses were extremely common in our community. In the United States, 24 million children ride school buses daily. On average these children spend an hour and a half on the bus on a given day. School buses are a great resource for families that do not live within walking distance of their schools. 

School buses provide students and their families with a great transportation option, but they also emit a large amount of air pollutants. One thing that many people often don’t know is that the pollutants can be present in the cabin of the bus, sometimes at much higher levels than in the air outside. This is an issue that we have talked about before, but I read a recent study that detailed the performance of retrofit systems, something that I will get to a little later. The biggest question here, though, is how does this happen?

Pollutants enter the cabin in a few different ways. When the bus is idling, particularly when doors and windows are open and the buses are lined up waiting for children to board, the wind carries harmful pollutants into the bus. Cracks or faulty seals on windows, doors and other parts of the bus also allow particles to enter the cabin both when the bus is both idling and in motion. If the bus does not have any form of filtration system installed, the soot is then easily carried into the cabin. There are ultrafine particles that are present in the exhaust that are particularly harmful because they easily penetrate lung tissues and enter the circulatory system. Children are especially vulnerable, as they take  more breaths per minute than adults and because their respiratory systems are not fully developed. Children are also exposed to these pollutants for seven and a half hours a week, for the entirety of the school year. 

So what can be done about this? While there is no perfect solution to this problem, here are a few things that can be done to clean up the air in and around buses: 

• Retrofitting buses by installing a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) to the exhaust pipe can limit the amount of particulate matter being released by the bus. This is the most effective method of filtering the exhaust, as this filter captures 90 percent of the soot emitted. 
• Another type of retrofitting is to install a Closed Crankcase Ventilation Filter (CCVF), which prevents emissions from the engine compartment from entering the bus through cracks and openings in windows and doors. The two filtration systems are most effective when used in conjunction with one another, though it is possible to retrofit a bus with only one of the options. 
• Limiting the amount of idling done near schools by both buses and other vehicles by vehicles close to parked buses, especially when buses have windows and doors open. By turning off the vehicle completely, the driver saves gasoline while also limiting the amount of pollutants being released into the air.

Now that you have all of this information, what can you do with it? There are some things that you can do in your own communities to reduce the amount of particulate matter children breathe on a regular basis:

• Encourage parents, students, teachers, and community members to install no idling signs in and around schools to cut down on the amount of harmful emissions in the vicinity of the school. 
• Encourage schools or school districts to apply for both state and federal no-match funds that could be used to purchase the filtration systems needed to limit the amount of pollutants entering the bus cabin and the ambient air around the bus. 
• Bring up the issues at parent/teacher conferences, to principals or superintendents, or to the PTA. Let others know that there is money available to make this happen at little to no cost for the school. 

If you are in Illinois, we have connections to a number of organizations that are working on this issue. Check out the Campaign to Clean Up Diesel Pollution, a coalition of more than 80 organizations, including Healthy Schools Campaign, led by the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago and Citizen Action/Illinois. If you have any questions about air quality or the clean diesel campaign, you can contact Jonathan Doster at Citizen Action/Illinois.

On a national scale, numerous groups are working diligently to spread the word about the air quality in and around school buses. For instance, the EPA has a Clean School bus Program, the Clean Air Campaign backs a No-Idling Program, and the Union of Concerned Scientists has conducted extensive research about the buses being used in all 50 states. There are also regional efforts in New Jersey, New Hampshire, Cleveland, Southwestern Ohio, New York City, and Georgia, to name a few.

But these organizations cannot do all of the work by themselves -- they need your help! Is there a clean diesel, retrofit, or no idling initiative in your city or state? Have you helped implement any of these programs in your area? Tell us in the comments section of this post. We'd love to hear about efforts in your area!

Air Pollution: How It Affects Student Health and Academic Performance

By Austin Sears, HSC Communications Intern

Today, many environmental issues are front and center in our minds. Recycling bins are almost as common as trash cans and reusable shopping bags have become increasingly popular. However, there is one issue that we can’t see and often gets pushed to the back of our minds: air pollution and its effects on our health. And while air pollution undoubtedly affects us all, children are particularly vulnerable and suffer disproportionately from the impact of dirty air.

A recent article published by Health Affairs draws attention to air pollution and its link to student health and academic performance. The study focused on public schools, the levels of pollution in the areas surrounding them and how these factors affect students. The findings showed that many schools in Michigan were located in places with high levels of air pollution coming from industrial sources. The study also found that while 44 percent of white students in the state were affected, 82 percent of African American students and 62 percent of Latino students were affected, results that show that children of color are more at risk than other students.

Here are some more of the study's findings:

"...schools located in areas with the highest pollution levels also had the lowest attendance rates (a potential indicator of poor health) and the highest proportions of students failing to meet the state’s educational testing standards.  

A recent survey of Michigan school superintendents verified that land availability and cost are a major consideration in school siting decisions. When the superintendents were asked to rank various considerations in school boards’ decisions about where to locate new schools, the two most important considerations were the availability of land and whether the school district already owned the land.

Half of the states, including Michigan, do not require any evaluation of the environmental quality of areas under consideration as sites for new schools, nor do they prohibit siting new industrial facilities and highways near existing schools. This makes it likely that new schools will be built in undesirable locations to keep the cost of land acquisition down."

One of the most significant points that Health Affairs highlights is the vulnerability of our children. Children have little to no say in where they live, and even less say in where they attend school. Parents often cannot afford to move to a different city or send their children to a different school, so it is up to our leaders in government to address site analysis and make changes to ensure that both schools already in use and schools that will be built in the future will be safe for our children. Pollution causes a number of adverse health effects, including childhood asthma, and this study shows that pollution affects children in Latino and African American communities more than their peers.

We know it’s not possible to pick up and move your school to a cleaner location; so as a concerned parent, what can you do? While there are not panaceas, there are a few things you can do.

First, while it’s hard for one school to affect outdoor air pollution, you can have an impact on your indoor environment and make sure the air inside your school is as clean as possible. Consider developing a school indoor environmental quality (IEQ) team to address issues. Many free tools are available to help establish IEQ teams, such as the EPA’s Tools for Schools Action Kit. Working with other parents, teachers, students and administrators, we can take action to limit pesticide use, green the cleaning programs, or improve ventilation within the school building.

Second, let’s get proactive on school siting. Work in your community or your state to make sure there are siting guidelines that will limit the exposures that can happen with a highly polluted site. Visit the  Child Proofing Our Communities guidelines for school siting recommendations. 

Finally, if your school district is going to build a new school, get involved and make sure your community understands the importance of school siting. Let your voice be heard and educate school boards, principals, teachers and anyone else that will listen about siting and the effects that it can have on your children.

Together, we can take action to ensure that our nation's schools are healthy and safe.

Dr. Charles Basch Discusses Health and Education Disparities

On April 6, 2011, Healthy Schools Campaign and the Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services convened a citywide forum on strategies to address health disparities and support student wellness and learning. At the forum, more than 400 attendees heard about the latest research on the impact of health disparities on student achievement and learned what education leaders at the local and national level are doing to address these disparities and support student success. 

This forum was a cornerstone of Heroes for Healthy Schools, the series of events that HSC co-hosted with the Office of Minority Health and Chicago Public Schools for National Minority Health Month. You can learn more about Heroes for Healthy Schools here. 

In the weeks ahead, we will spotlight the remarkable speakers who shared their perspectives on health disparities and education at the forum. Today, we are featuring Dr. Charles Basch, Richard March Hoe Professor of Health Education at Columbia University Teachers College.  

You may also view video of all the speakers' remarks, download the presentations they shared at forum, and see relevant research on HSC’s website. 

 

Dr. Charles Basch, Richard March Hoe Professor of Health Education at Columbia University Teachers College, discussed the ways that health disparities have an impact on education and the role schools can play in addressing health disparities. 

He pointed out that health disparities and wellness have been largely overlooked in efforts to improve student success and learning. If health problems compromise students’ motivation and ability to learn, he said, educational efforts such as teacher preparation, financing, and curriculum are jeopardized.

Dr. Basch outlined seven educationally relevant disparities:

• One in five youth have vision problems.
• Asthma, the most common chronic disease, affects 14 percent or 9.9 million youth under 18 years of age.
• Teen pregnancy will affect one in three teens in their lifetime.
• Aggression and violence affects children at all levels; 28 percent of children are bullied at school and 35 percent have been in a fight in the last year.
• Two out of three children don’t get enough physical activity.
• Twenty percent of children skip breakfast on any given day. 
• ADHD affects 4.6 million school-aged youth. 

Dr. Basch pointed out that these factors disproportionally affect minority communities. He encouraged forum attendees to make a difference by working together. He said, 

“The single most effective approach is to address these disproportional issues collectively.” 

You can learn more and see the full presentation in the video above and can download Dr. Basch’s slides here [pdf].

Plus! Check out this recent post on HSC’s blog about Dr. Basch’s work and his latest report, "Healthier Students Are Better Learners: A Missing Link in School Reforms to Close the Achievement Gap."

Spotlight on Charles E. Basch: Healthier Students Are Better Learners

by Joanna Blonska, a writer for the Office of Minority Health Resource Center.

For the past 30 years, Charles E. Basch has studied health disparities across a wide range of urban minority populations.   As the Richard March Hoe Professor of Health Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, his attempt to translate what is already known into practice to help groups with the greatest need has been the running thread of his work. 

If his years of research have made anything clear it is this:  there is a strong link between health and learning and if we are to begin to eradicate disparities in health and education, we should start by creating healthier schools.

 “While we spend a tremendous amount of money on chronic disease, it’s always been clear to me from the outset, the single most effective approach that we have…is primary and secondary prevention from school-based programs,” Basch says.  “It’s when children are young that we can prevent many of these problems and their adverse effects rather than waiting until they are adolescents or adults and the problems have already developed.”

Basch presents the evidence for this argument in his latest report, “Healthier Students Are Better Learners: A Missing Link in School Reforms to Close the Achievement Gap” [pdf] published in March 2010 which brings together findings from fields ranging from neurosciences and child development to epidemiology and public health to illustrate how health-related problems play a major role in limiting academic performance of minority children.

Basch specifically identifies seven factors--poor vision, asthma, teen pregnancy, aggression and violence, physical inactivity, ADHD, and insufficient breakfast--that can and do lead to health disparities. 

While it is not new that these problems disproportionately affect urban minority youth, what Basch emphasizes is that the disparities “have direct causal links to motivation and ability to learn through affecting [children’] sensory perceptions, cognition, connectedness and engagement in school.”  Simply put, healthier students are better students.

Basch argues that there needs to be a reassessment in the approach by educators and public health officials in addressing these problems in order to make any serious inroads into improving the lives of millions of minority children who are affected by these disparities. 

He acknowledges that educators have attempted for years to close the achievement gap by focusing on improving school curriculums and teacher qualifications and introducing better leadership and accountability measures.   There has also been much rhetoric around incorporating health programs in schools.

But for the most part, he says, “the way in which these programs have been done, has not been in a strategic, high-quality and coordinated way.” 

Part of the problem, Basch argues, is that the emphasis has tended to be too categorical.  There may be a violence program or an obesity prevention program, but these, he notes, do not adequately address the overall development of the child or take into consideration the many factors affecting the child, which may overlap and be interrelated.

“We have to realize that [a child’s] development is affected by a multitude of factors and when we focus on some and not others, the benefits are going to be compromised,” Basch says.  “The big picture message I’m trying to get across is the interactive and synergistic effects of these different health problems and the need to address them collectively if we are to have a meaningful effect.”

While school nutrition and fitness initiatives supported by efforts such as Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign or the USDA’s Healthier US School Challenge are both “an important piece” and “a step in the right direction,” on a national level, he argues, there needs to a “bigger picture” approach—targeting the seven prevalent health factors he studied-- and more involvement from the Department of Education.   

He also advocates for political will on a school district level among school leaders “to recognize that these are important issues and they have to be addressed, not in a haphazard way” but “as part of the vision and mission of the school.”

Focusing programs in the places where there is the greatest risk, particularly among low-income urban populations, is critical to closing the achievement gap for urban minority children, Basch says.

In populations with higher socioeconomic status, there tends to be much greater financial and familial support, but in urban minority populations, those resources are not necessarily present to address problems.  There is also often more stress on the families with respect to poverty, working many jobs, or raising multiple children. 

Schools can play a central role in ending both health disparities and the achievement gap and Basch is hopeful that success is achievable with comprehensive school-based health programs.

“The school is really a social institution that’s ideally situated to address the needs of kids in this situation,” he says.  “I think there is lots of evidence of programs that have shown that they can be effective.”

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Healthy Schools Campaign is pleased to announce Heroes for Healthy Schools: Coming together for
student wellness and achievement, a weeklong series of events to celebrate Minority Health Month and
focus attention on programs and policies in Chicago that support student wellness and achievement.
This exciting series is presented as a partnership of Healthy Schools Campaign, Chicago Public
Schools Nutrition Support Services and the Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services.

We are thrilled to take this opportunity to spotlight a few of the many individuals who are making a difference for kids' health at school and in our community. Today's "hero for healthy schools," Professor Charles E. Basch, has dedicated his work to the research of effective strategies for addressing health and education disparities.

Basch will speak at the Citywide Forum on Health Disparities and Education, a cornerstone event recognizing Minority Health Month, to discuss his latest research on health disparities and student achievement. We invite you to join us at this forum on April 6 in Chicago. For details and to register, click here.

Recognizing the Role of Schools in the National Prevention Strategy: Share Your Comments by Jan. 13

By Alex Schaible, HSC Writer & Policy Analyst

The federal government is changing its approach to health and, for the first time, our country’s decision makers are taking a serious look at how to protect the health of Americans through prevention –- that is, helping people stay well and preventing illness. 

Last month, the National Prevention Council, a group of 17  federal departments and agencies charged with planning and coordinating prevention efforts around the country, released a draft of recommendations for the National Prevention Strategy. The goal of these recommendations is to develop a strategy for “working together to improve the health and quality of life for individuals, families and communities by moving the nation from a focus on sickness and disease to one based on wellness and prevention.” 

The council is accepting comments on this draft through this Thurs., Jan. 13. This is a wonderful opportunity to make sure that the important role that schools play in health and wellness is recognized. 

Schools provide an ideal setting for prevention and health promotion.  For example, providing students with good indoor air quality, access to healthy food and opportunities to be physically active at school can have a major impact on two significant and preventable epidemics: childhood asthma and obesity.  A National Prevention Strategy that supports healthy school environments will help protect the health of the millions of children and staff who spend their day in school. 

While the current draft of the National Prevention Strategy does a good job promoting healthy food, physical activity, and healthy environments, we believe the recommendations need to have a stronger focus on the role schools play in protecting and promoting health. 

We’re letting the National Prevention Council know what we think about the drafted recommendations by submitting our  comments on their website; we encourage you to share your comments as well.  Should the recommendations have a stronger focus on schools? Should they include more details about the importance of healthy food? Should they better address the impact of the environment on our health?

You can read the draft recommendations and let the National Prevention Council know what you think online at www.hhs.gov/news/reports/nphps.html.

Submit your comments by this Thurs., January 13 to make sure your voice is heard.  This is a welcome opportunity to shape the direction of our nation’s health strategy.

Improving Indoor Air Quality: 'One of the Most Important Things a School District Can Do'

by Lindsay Muscato, Writer/Communications Specialist

On the EPA's blog, school superintendent and healthy schools advocate Richard Middleton writes about the importance of improving indoor air quality (IAQ). It's an often-overlooked way to increase student and teacher wellness, he says -- and steps don't have to be complicated. In his district, North East Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, simply reducing clutter and eliminating carpets made a real difference:

"We had cluttered classrooms and storage areas full of items that were just collecting dust. It was so bad that our cleaning crews couldn’t even navigate through the classrooms around the clutter to properly clean! By simply eliminating the clutter and removing carpeting in classrooms and hallways and following EPA’s IAQ Tools for Schools Program guidance we improved IAQ and saw dramatic decreases in absenteeism and visits to the school nurse that have been sustained over time. It didn’t take much – but it did take making a commitment to improving IAQ and sticking to it."

Read the rest of the post here.

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• In January, IAQ takes center stage at the 2011 Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools National Symposium.

• Check out the EPA's IAQ Tools for Schools Action Kit to get started improving IAQ in your school.

• Improving IAQ makes schools greener, healthier places to learn and work. For more on how green cleaning can contribute to a healthy school, see HSC's Quick & Easy Guide to Green Cleaning in Schools.

Chicago Mothers Speak Up for Cleaner Air: Add Your Name to the Petition

Today we have a guest blog from Jonathan Doster, organizer with Citizen Action/Illinois. Thanks to Jonathan for sharing information about this important campaign!

Diesel pollution is a serious public health issue. The exhaust from bulldozers, trucks, and other engines contains over 40 toxic air contaminants, carcinogens, ozone-forming elements, and fine particulate matter ("soot"). Exposure to fine particles is known to cause asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer, strokes, and even premature death.

In Metropolitan Chicago alone, it's estimated that diesel fine particles cause 755 deaths (65 from cancer), 1,021 heart attacks, 476 cases of chronic bronchitis, and over 17,000 asthma-attacks annually.

 Now, mothers from across Chicago are taking a stand against the health risks of diesel pollution with the Mothers for Cleaner Air petition. Women from Austin to Little Village to East Chicago to Lakeview have already stood up for clean air. You can add your name to the petition here.

Why are Chicago mothers concerned?
While diesel exhaust is unhealthy for everyone, children are particularly vulnerable to diesel pollution, because their lungs are still developing and because children breathe 50 percent more air per pound of body weight than adults do.

Also, the effects of diesel pollution are particularly harmful for people who have lung disease, such as children with asthma. Asthma is the number one cause of missed school days due to a chronic illness among children.  As such, exposure to diesel exhaust has been identified as a major environmental health risk for children.

It's not only young people who are affected. A recent German study analyzed data from 1,775 women, all near 55 years old and healthy when they entered the study. What they found is that, all other things being equal, the more pollution a woman encountered, the greater was her chance of developing diabetes.

What can be done?
Cleaning up construction equipment emissions is a vital strategy to protect children and adults alike from harmful exhaust exhaust. Construction equipment is a major source of diesel pollution; nationally, over 2 million pieces of construction equipment are in use and most lack any pollution controls.

Both cleaner diesel fuel and pollution control technologies are available right now. Commercial emission controls called diesel particulate filters (DPFs) combined with the use of widely available ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel (ULSD) can eliminate over 90 percent of fine particles from a heavy-duty truck or piece of construction equipment.

How do we do this?
The Chicago Clean Construction Ordinance would require all City of Chicago contractors working on public construction projects with budgets of $2 million or more to use this ultra low sulfur diesel fuel (ULSD) and pollution controls on their diesel vehicles and equipment.

What can you do right now?
Mothers from across Chicago are urging the city to enact this clean construction ordinance by signing our Mothers for Cleaner Air petition. Please take 30 seconds to sign on and share with all of the mothers you know. It will make the world of difference.

Bus Fumes a Threat to Children’s Health

Today we have a guest blog by Ashley Collins, Environmental Health Manager, Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. 

Did you ever think the school bus your children may be riding is a serious threat to their health?  In Illinois, there are more than 18,000 buses that transport over 2 million school children to and from school every day.  While riding on a school bus is generally a safe way a student can travel to school, diesel exhaust from school buses can pose a significant health threat to school children, drivers and school staff.  The exhaust from diesel buses contains over 40 toxic air contaminants, carcinogens, ozone smog-forming compounds, and fine particulate matter (“soot”).  Exposure to fine particles is known to cause asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer, strokes, and even premature deaths.  

In recent years, several studies [pdf] have indicated that the pollution emitted from diesel school buses can pose a grave threat to school children, bus drivers and school staff. These studies have found that soot levels inside a school bus can be ten times higher than the outside air, increasing children's and staff's exposure to harmful pollutants.

Children at Risk
Although diesel exhaust is unhealthy for everyone, children are particularly vulnerable to diesel pollution because their lungs are still developing.  In addition, children breathe 50 percent more air per pound of body weight than adults do. 

The effects of diesel pollution are particularly harmful for people who have lung disease, such as children who have asthma. Asthma is the number one cause of missed school days due to a chronic illness among children.  As such, exposure to diesel exhaust has been identified as a major environmental health risk for children. 

What is being done?
Today, the federal government requires all newly-manufactured school diesel buses (models 2007 and later) to be equipped with pollution controls called diesel particulate filters, which can eliminate up to 90 percent of diesel soot from a tailpipe. These same pollution controls are commercially available and should be installed on older dirty diesel school buses as well.

Free funding available to clean up dirty buses!
Here in Illinois, our state EPA has made available $1 million in funding to help school districts clean up their dirty diesel buses with advanced pollution controls. Funding is currently available for school districts that are located in the counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will and portions of Kendall and Grundy that own their bus fleets.  There are no match requirements with this funding.  

If you are in one of those areas, don’t miss out on this opportunity to clean up your buses! For more details about this funding source and an application, visit www.illinoisgreenfleets.org and click on “Illinois Clean Diesel Grant Program.”  Or contact Ashley Collins, Environmental Health Manager, RHAMC directly at [email protected] or 312-628-0202.

We’d love to hear about other efforts to tackle this problem around the country. What’s going on in your area?

Mary Richardson-Lowry of Chicago Public Schools at Go for the Gold Launch: 'The Foundation for Success is Set'

Mary Richardson-Lowry addresses the crowd at the Go for the Gold launch.

At the August 17 launch of the Go for the Gold Campaign, several key leaders helped us kick off  this new initiative. We're proud to work with such tremendous supporters, including Mary Richardson-Lowry, President of the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education. HSC greatly appreciates the district’s commitment to promoting student health and improving nutritional standards for schools meals.

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An excerpt of remarks from Mary Richardson-Lowry:

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We are here for a very important cause -- the health and well-being of our students.

CPS is committed to providing a world-class education for the students of Chicago and we know that there is a strong connection between healthful school food, physical activity and a student’s ability to learn and succeed in school.

In a school district where 86 percent of students are low-income and many young people receive the majority of their daily food intake at school, it is especially important for us to provide students with healthful meals.

Many of our students face the dual challenge of food insecurity and childhood obesity. We see a strong school nutrition program as a way of positively impacting both those conditions.

We are proud that one of our most famous alums, First Lady Michele Obama, is taking the lead on fighting childhood obesity through the her Let’s Move initiative.

But even before the First Lady championed this cause, CPS was at the forefront of bringing healthier foods to our schools. I am very pleased to announce that for the 2011 school year, we have significantly raised the nutrition standards for school food and developed the healthful, delicious recipes that you sampled for lunch today.

To develop the new standards, we convened a group of dietitians, school food operational experts and community partners. This group adopted the philosophy that the menu improvements needed to be far-reaching and sustainable. . .  sustainable so that they would be affordable and pleasing improvements for our students that we could continue to offer for many years to come.

Some of the highlights of the new standards include:

• While vegetables are already offered daily, CPS will now offer a different vegetable every day, and increase dark green and orange and dark vegetables and limit starchy vegetables.
• Where occasional whole grains are offered, there will now be a whole grain offering at lunch each day.
• All menus contain zero trans fats.
• No donuts or breakfast pastries will be on the menu and there is a prescribed standard for cereal that limits the amount of sugar it contains.

Healthy Schools Campaign was one of our key community partners in developing these new nutritional standards.

I am very pleased today to announce Go for the Gold, a new partnership between Chicago Public Schools, Healthy Schools Campaign, the USDA Midwest Office and Illinois State Board of Education.

Go for the Gold builds on the major advancements we made with our new nutrition standards and is a citywide partnership that will challenge and support Chicago public schools to meet the USDA’s HealthierUS School Challenge.

This challenge is one of the pillars of the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign and recognizes schools that make improvements to school food and nutrition education, and increase opportunities for physical activity and recess.

We support all of these changes and see them as key to creating an educational environment that promotes success and academic achievement. We also support the First Lady’s goal of reversing the childhood obesity epidemic that threatens so many children and adults in Chicago.

Go for the Gold also provides us the opportunity to highlight the individual success of schools that are already committed to health and wellness. Two years ago, Principal Jorge A. Ruiz became the new administrator for Eli Whitney Elementary School, and he quickly became a champion for making schools healthier places.

The dedicated parents who were already involved in school wellness initiatives welcomed his arrival. The school’s active wellness team, composed mostly of parents, researched wellness practices other schools were implementing and compiled a wish list and a set of reasons why their school should implement these practices.

Their list included: increasing breakfast consumption, creating an in-school daily exercise for all students, and increasing opportunities for the surrounding community to learn about being healthy.

Eli Whitney School is a great candidate to be a Go for the Gold school because it promotes student meal participation during the school day, promotes opportunities for physical activity for all students, and reinforces nutrition and health messages through multiple channels of communication.

The school wellness team and the principal worked hand in hand to accomplish these goals. Here are some examples of that:

• The school implemented Breakfast in the Classroom, a program that provides a healthy in-classroom breakfast. Principal Ruiz noticed positive changes immediately after the program was implemented. Not only did school attendance increase, but so did students’ readiness to learn.
• And Breakfast in the Classroom also took away the stigma many students felt in receiving free lunch. Teachers greatly applaud the program and say that taking those ten minutes to eat breakfast are well worth it because students behave better and are more alert to learn.
• Every morning at 9 a.m. and in the afternoon as well, time for yoga is announced over the PA system. Students and teachers clear a space for themselves in the classroom and follow the yoga moves spoken over the PA system. For about a year now, yoga has become a daily ritual for students and staff, and the program has been very well received. Students and teachers are refocused and reenergized, making the school day a very productive one.
• Eli Whitney has also found great community partners that strengthen the work the school is doing around health and wellness. The school helps organize health festivals where various community organizations promote their services and also celebrate healthy lifestyles. For example, many parents and community members began to attend St. Anthony Hospital’s healthy cooking classes and now regularly go to their workshop series on wellness.

Our wellness policy supports all of the components of Go for the Gold. Chicago Public Schools knows that physical activity during the school day increases the likelihood for children to be successful in school and strongly encourages schools to incorporate recess on a regular basis as part of the instructional day.

The district also makes available to all schools a robust health curriculum which includes nutrition education. The foundation for success is set.

Go for the Gold will engage the entire school community – from parents to teachers, students, principals, nonprofit organizations, businesses and the culinary community. CPS is committed to this partnership at every level of the organization and we are energized and excited to work with all of you to make it a reality.

We treasure all of our students and want them to lead long, healthy, and active lives.

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Thank you to President Richardson-Lowry for taking part in this exciting launch!

To check out more photos from the launch event, click here.

Opportunity to Speak Up for Clean Air & Kids' Health

by Alex Schaible, HSC writer & policy analyst

We at Healthy Schools Campaign believe protecting communities against environmental exposures is a necessary step in providing children with a healthy school environment.  Exposure to environmental contaminants, such as those found in air pollution, can place the health and well-being of children at risk.  Our friends at the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago alerted us about an opportunity to speak out against air pollution and support healthy school environments in your community. 

The U.S. EPA will be holding three public hearings (in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta) on a proposed national power plant emissions rule.  The proposed Clean Air Transport Rule would have significant benefits for clean air and public health.  The rule is designed to cut Sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants by 71 percent and smog-forming Nitrogen oxide pollutants by 52 percent. 

EPA estimates that these rules would save 14,000-36,000 lives a year.

The Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago and their clean air partners will be speaking at the hearings to urge U.S. EPA to adopt a strong rule.  Please join this important effort to share your thoughts and express your support for a strong, effective rule. 

For more information about the hearings, click here. 

Hearings will be held:

• Chicago, August 19
• Philadelphia, August 26
• Atlanta,  September 1

To register to speak at the hearings, please contact Pamela Long by email or at 919-541-0641. 

For more background on the EPA Transport Rule, click here [pdf]. 

Plus: If you are planning to attend the Chicago hearing, please also contact Ashley Collins of the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, who is spearheading the Chicago outreach efforts.

First National Physical Activity Plan Released

by Laura Fillenwarth

The first-ever U.S. National Physical Activity Plan was released yesterday, and we were pleased to see that schools play a significant role in this effort to make physical activity a regular part of Americans’ lives.

In partnership with Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign, and to reverse the nation’s alarming obesity trend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Prevention Research Center at the University of South Carolina along released the first National Activity Plan with a collection of partner organizations.

The National Physical Activity Plan is a comprehensive blueprint for promoting physical activity in the American population. Similar plans have been successful in other countries, including Canada, Finland, Scotland, and the UK.

In order to empower all Americans to be physically active, the plan tackles a variety of settings including public health; health care; education; parks, recreation, fitness, and sports; transportation, urban design and community planning; business and industry; volunteer and non-profit organizations; and the mass media.

Many of the plan’s recommendations are in line with HSC’s approach to creating school environments that support wellness. For example, one of the strategies for education is to “develop and implement state and school district policies requiring school accountability for the quality and quantity of physical education.” Other strategies include providing access to physical activity before and after school and promoting physical activity in early childhood settings.

Yesterday’s launch included a press conference and congressional briefings sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Ron Kind were held that afternoon. The National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity (NCPPA) will lead the implementation following the launch.

Let’s Get Moving: Study Shows Little Physical Activity for Chicago Teens

By Rosa L. Ramirez, HSC Policy & Outreach Coordinator 

Chicago’s youth could be at increased risk for chronic illness as adults, reports a new study by Children’s Memorial Research Center revealing that the percentage of Chicago teens participating in the recommended amount of daily physical activity is stunningly low. Why is this? What does this mean for the future of Chicago teens? And what can we do to reverse the trend?

“Chronic diseases don’t develop overnight. And so what we see here is a group of young people whose habits reflect a walk toward higher rates of chronic disease,” explained Maryann Mason of the Child Health Data Lab, to Chicago Public Radio.

To collect data for the study, teens in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system were surveyed about the time they spent on the computer, watching TV, or being physically active. The CDC recommends about 60 minutes of physical activity a day. Less than one in three teens in the CPS system meets this recommendation for physical activity, compared to nearly half of students in the rest of the state. And researchers also say that as Chicago youth get older, the percentage of teens getting enough exercise will continue to drop, resulting in higher risk for chronic illness as adults.

The reasons are complex and often inextricably linked to other issues.

Increasingly our lives have been made easier and less active because of technological advances and modern conveniences. The commonplace sedentary lifestyle coupled with concerns about transportation, opportunities in a child’s area and expense are often reported as common barriers to being physically active.

First Lady Michelle Obama is urging the country to increase kids’ levels of physical activity, as part of her Let’s Move initiative to reduce childhood obesity in a generation. She argues that today’s children need safe routes to walk and ride to school, parks, playgrounds and community centers where they can play and be active after school, and sports, dance or fitness programs that are exciting and challenging to keep them engaged.

Programs such as those offered by Chicago Run, Get Healthy Chicago, Purple Asparagus, Urban Initiatives, Walk Across Illinois and the UIC Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion are well equipped to offer free or low-cost services to schools located throughout the city to get kids moving and being physically active.

Let’s get moving!

Strong Leadership and Great Promise on School Environmental Health from EPA and Dept. of Education: Reflections on the 10th Annual Tools for Schools Symposium

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson speaks about her child's experiences attending school with asthma

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of attending the 10th annual Tools for School National Symposium. This was my third time attending: first in in 1996 (it wasn't called a symposium back then, just a gathering in the basement of a hotel), then in 2005 and finally, this year. Boy has this conference progressed! And as a school health advocate for over 15 years, I have to say that this conference really is a great marker showing how far we've come, while still acknowledging how far we need to go. 

I left the conference with three main thoughts: There is now leadership like never before; it's exciting to see the EPA partnering with the Department of Education; and wow, this is how to run a conference.

First, the EPA's Tools for Schools Program has always been a small department in a large agency. They've fought for resources and rarely had a high profile in what has traditionally been a regulatory agency. However, for the first time, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (in the photo above) spoke at the conference -- showing a real commitment from the top. Jackson eloquently spoke of her personal challenges involved in sending her asthmatic child to school and wanting to do everything in her power to ensure that other parents don't have to go through the same challenges.That level of engagement throughout the Agency means that for the first time, real discussions of environmental health are happening throughout the EPA.

Second, one of the major barriers to improving the indoor environments in schools has been a lack of resources from the Department of Education -- but this is beginning to change. Since the new administration came into office last year, there has been change at the agency level with regard to these issues, real change.For the first time in my career, I'm seeing the Department of Education getting involved with the EPA on school environment and health issues. And we can't wait to see more. From the staff level all the way up to the leadership at the Department of Education, we are excited to see communication and coordination of programs for environmental health in schools. We all know that no single agency has enough resources to help schools solve all their problems, so we better work together. 

At the conference, the Department of Education's General Counsel, Charles Rose, discussed the importance of the school environment and how working with EPA will be important to prioritizing children's health. This was a first, and it's very good news for school health advocates.

Third and finally, this may have been the best run conference I've attended. It was well organized, the program effectively modeled team-building activities that the participants were being asked to bring back to their school, and in a short period of time it really built excitement around what many consider to be mundane issues. The same EPA staff has been running the program since its inception. Fifteen years ago I knew how dynamic and what a great leader this staff person was, but now she has added skills and moderating techniques that made this an exceptionally effective and motivating conference. Tracy -- kudos to you and your success in turning indoor air quality into an exciting and motivating issue. Yes, we learned about identifying mold, conducting facility walk-throughs and testing for radon in this symposium; but more importantly, we were motivated to engage school teams into joining us. 

For all the schools out there, I encourage you to consider taking part in the 11th Annual Tools for Schools Symposium because you don't get quality experiences like this every day.

 

The energy in the audience, both from school participants and EPA staff who are dedicated to these issues, was so impressive. Taken as a whole, the quality of the program, the new partnerships with the Department of Education and the leadership from the top made this is an exciting day for those working to improve school health. 

Making Wellness a Priority: When Schools Focus on Physical Activity in the Classroom

At HSC, we love to hear about new ways that schools are making wellness a priority and instilling healthy habits in their students. Studies show that activity in the classroom increases students’ concentration, builds healthy habits and improves kids’ overall health – and teachers are putting this finding to the test. Through our work with teachers and schools, we've learned that in classrooms across the country, teachers and students are stepping out from behind their desks and trading workouts for workbooks.

Dolores Navarro, a kindergarten teacher at the McCormick School in Chicago says that when she began to weave brief periods of structured exercise into the school day, students responded.

“They are more open to doing work and finishing their tasks after they are physically active,” she says. “They have more energy. Their brains are more focused, more alert. Their brains are working – when they do math, they get through the problems quickly, just like that!”

Students take an exercise break in Ms. Navarro's classroom

In Navarro’s classroom, students take a break every hour to stretch, and a kid-friendly video leads them through exercises for twenty minutes a day. Even small amounts of physical activity are valuable, she says: “As a teacher, you say, ‘Oh, I don’t have time,’” she said. “But you see that it’s simple -- you do have time.”

At Merrill Middle School in Des Moines, Iowa, science teacher Blake Hammond appeals to kids’ innate sense of play. He worked with a physical education teacher at the school to incorporate the Nintendo Wii (a video game that requires life-like movements to play simulations of games such as tennis) into the school day. Soon he and others and raised enough funds for an interactive fitness arcade including the Wii, video bikes, another activity-heavy game called Dance Dance Revolution, and more.

“You can see a direct connection between students’ wellness and their engagement in class,” Hammond says. “Their participation, raising their hand, there’s an overall connection. The awareness of self that comes with wellness is a huge success when it comes to kids this age. When they have that, they’re more ready to participate and learn.”

Fitness arcade at Merrill Middle School in Des Moines, Iowa

Physical activity is crucial not only to academic achievement but to reducing the epidemic levels of childhood obesity and related illnesses. The Department of Health and Human Services forecasts that, three years from now, one out of five children and youth in the United States will be obese, which can lead to greater risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke later in life.

In a 2009 report, The Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation highlighted the critical role that schools play in ending this epidemic. As part of its call for a national strategy to address obesity, the report recommended increasing the frequency, intensity, and duration of physical activity at school. By incorporating physical activity into the everyday classroom environment, teachers are not only leading sessions of yoga or jumping-jacks. They’re preparing the next generation for a lifetime of healthy habits, breaking the pattern of obesity at a time when action is critical.

Navarro says she knew it was time to take action in her classroom when she saw her kindergartners struggling with physical activity at such a young age.

She says:“Looking at those little kids who have trouble breathing, trouble exercising – you just reach the point where you say: Stop! It’s got to stop.”

"I want to be their voice:" High School Student Photographer on Broken Glass, Great Teachers and the Schools All Students Deserve

"Broken Window" by Ian from Baltimore

HSC was thrilled to release a new book last week with our partners at Critical Exposure and 21st Century School Fund. The publication is based on Through Your Lens, a contest and photo exhibit we held to encourage students and teachers from around the country to photograph their schools and share the results.

A high-quality learning and working environment for students and teachers can make a real difference in the classroom. Every day, students suffer from asthma worsened by poor air quality in schools, navigate unsafe and damaged buildings, and deal with the stigma of attending a poorly maintained school. And the reverse is certainly true as well -- a well-maintained school building that exemplifies the importance of education can inspire students and teachers to new heights. 

At the Through Your Lens exhibit opening on Capitol Hill in October 2009, Baltimore high school student Briauna Wills spoke about her own learning environment. To celebrate the release of the Through Your Lens book, we're honored to share part of Briauna's poignant speech:

I chose to join the “Through Your Lens Exhibit” because I love my school and teachers but I hate the building we are in. I feel imprisoned at my school with the cages on the windows and doors, bad lighting and broken windows. I am so embarrassed by my school building that I tell people I go to Digital Harbor, a Baltimore City school with beautiful new facilities. My school has so many horrible deficiencies like bad ventilation, uneven heating, and faulty electrical wiring. I have asthma and so do a lot of my friends. Because of the lack of air conditioning and poor ventilation we often miss a lot of class time, especially when the seasons change.

Most of the time we don’t have enough computers for a full class of students and we have to share because of the electrical problems. ...My freshman year my whole class had to sit with their feet on their chairs in a certain class because the sockets on the floor were old and had wires shooting out from them and my teacher didn’t want us to get shocked.

...I had a substitute teacher recently say, “I’ve seen bad schools but a school that when you shut the classroom door you get locked in because the knobs are broken and the doors are this old is crazy!” Everyone laughed but I wished I wasn’t there.

I wish we had lockers big enough to fit my binders in and there weren’t wires hanging from the ceilings and that I didn’t have to stress about being in danger of cutting myself on the broken glass on the doors and windows. I want to go to a better-looking and working school but I love being here no matter how many problems we have, although many students have transferred because of it. I would like to see my school up and running like some of the new ones that have been remodeled.

If my school was in better shape it would make me enjoy coming more. Life would be easier at school if I had facilities like Digital Harbor. I would have less worries and wouldn’t feel so down about my school. I understand that other schools have problems just as much as mine and I’m sure there are people at other schools with the same feelings so I want to be their voice and help them get the schools we all deserve.

Briauna Wills is a sophomore at the Baltimore Freedom Academy, a public school focused on social justice and activism. After she graduates from high school, she hopes to attend Towson University to study law.

We'll be posting more photos from Through Your Lens in the weeks ahead as Congress prepares to vote on legislation to fund the repair, renovation and construction of safe, healthy school buildings.You can take action at www.throughyourlens.org to let your Senators and Representative know that our nation's school facilites matter. 

Learn more and see the Through Your Lens book here.