by Brianna Crandall — November 19, 2010—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft voluntary guidelines on November 17 to help communities protect the health of students and staff from environmental threats when selecting new locations for schools. More than 1,900 new schools serving approximately 1.2 million children and costing more than $13 billion opened in the 2008-2009 school year.
EPA says that major investments in schools can be compromised if environmental hazards are not fully understood prior to selecting a school site. Prepared with a variety of stakeholders, the voluntary guidelines also provide tools to help communities ensure that new locations for schools are accessible to the students they are intended to serve.
The potential impacts on children’s health and education, as well as the damage to the community when school environmental hazards are later identified, are significant, notes EPA. In some cases, schools have been closed and in other cases have undergone costly remediation.
The new draft voluntary guidelines will give local communities tools to help them consider environmental health issues in establishing school site selection criteria and in conducting effective environmental reviews of potential school sites. The guidelines recommend involving the public in the site selection process from the beginning to help ensure community support for these decisions.
The draft school siting guidelines are being made available for public comment for 90 days. Comments will be accepted until 4 pm EST on February 18, 2011. EPA also offers more information on the guidelines and on protecting students’ and staff’s health in existing schools.
