Speak out for school safety

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Speak out for school safety

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/264514_unhealthy28.html

MARK S. COOPER AND ART BUSCH

GUEST COLUMNISTS

Children and teachers are being horribly injured in Washington

schools by unregulated hazards. The state Department of Health and

the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction bear major

responsibility for these " persistently dangerous " schools. For more

than a decade, outraged parents have urged the state Board of Health

to take corrective action.

In 2002, the state Board of Health mandated DOH and OSPI to

formulate an emergency mold response plan for schools. No plan was

ever formulated. Last year, however, an official from the DOH School

Environmental Health Program did testify against an elementary

school teacher, to help overturn her mold-injury award from the

Department of Labor and Industries.

In 2003, the Board of Health called upon the DOH to revise school

environmental health rules in the Washington Administrative Code for

the first time in 30 years. However, because of cost and compliance

concerns, the DOH has failed again to formulate a functional system

of school safety.

DOH has rejected testimony from parents with injured children, as

well as numerous proposals from a School Rule Development Committee

convened by the state Board of Health. In addition, DOH has adopted

the same refrain of " No Budget, No Rule " used by school officials,

risk managers and OSPI to block substantive reforms: " Unfunded

Mandate! " -- as if child safety was never their paramount mandate.

For the health of children and teachers, it is time for Gov.

Gregoire to break this ongoing epidemic of FEMA-itis.

To fulfill her promise of making Washington the " Healthiest State in

the Country, " Gregoire must alter the recalcitrant positions of DOH,

OSPI and local health jurisdictions, which do not enforce

environmental codes in schools. To achieve a functional set of

codes, she will need to exert bold leadership and broker a solution

among the Board of Health, state bureaucracies, legislators,

teachers and parents.

The solution must contain funding to implement the codes. For

example: (1) a state-funded no-interest loan program for urgent

school repairs, (2) increased funding for school renovations

(RenGrants) and the Washington Asthma Attack Plan, (3) school levy

lid exemptions for health and safety issues, (4) funding for annual

school inspections.

There is no doubt that our schools are in desperate shape. Some

schools need supplementary funding just to adequately heat and clean

their buildings. Clearly, the benefits to children's health far

outweigh the above costs.

Annual health inspections of schools must not be turned over to

school administrators, or undefined other " entities, " as is allowed

in DOH's draft Washington Administrative Code. This outsourcing of

statutory authority would be a disaster.

Instead, a new ombudsman position is urgently needed in the state

Attorney General's Office, so that parents and teachers with

emergencies have some viable avenue to prompt actions from

unresponsive public health officials and school administrators.

Accountability for children's health means tabulating injuries,

public health citations and lawsuit settlements for each school

district, and making it available on the Internet.

Speak out for school safety. Have your legislators demand

enforceable health and safety codes from DOH -- codes that have

clear statutory authority and state oversight. For the safety of the

state's 1 million schoolchildren, we must say yes to enforceable

rules and no to platitudes and FEMA-itis.

Mark S. is a parent representative on the Washington Board of

Health's School Rule Development Committee. Art Busch is a Uniserv

Representative for Washington Education Association (Midstate).

Other authors represent the WEA Indoor Environmental Quality

Workgroup and Coalition for Environmentally Safe Schools.

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