Weingarten added, “as we celebrate National Healthy Schools Day, let’s ensure that all kids attend schools that are good for their minds and their bodies. That means helping every school meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) guidance on indoor air and environmental quality. It’s hard to build kids up in schools that are falling down.”
Since 2003 parents, teachers, school nurses, custodians, advocates, and agencies have promoted National Healthy Schools Day activities nationwide. Whether at the beginning stages of investigating school environments or building on an established indoor air/environmental quality program, advocates are invited to host a local activity that educates others and celebrates their schools’ successes.
Click here to register a future National Healthy Schools Day event.
This national effort is coordinated by the Healthy Schools Network in partnership with a wide variety of public education agencies and advocacy organizations, including AFT. At our national convention in 2014, union delegates passed a resolution in support of healthy and hunger-free schools, building on efforts to assure all students are “ready to learn.”
Click here to read the convention resolution.
Working together, the Healthy Schools Network promotes the use of the federal EPA’s “IAQ Tools for Schools” guidance as well as other environmental health programs for schools and children’s health.
Click here to learn more about the EPA’s effort to create healthy indoor environments in public schools.
The network advances collaborative research and policy development, as well as advanced systemic reforms in three core areas defining children’s environmental health at school:
- Environmental public health services for children at risk or with suspected exposures at school;
- Child-safe policies for housekeeping and purchasing (targeting indoor air pollutants, mercury, pesticides and other toxics, and the use of green and healthy/safer products); &
- Child-safe standards for school design, construction, and siting.
