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How Clean and Healthy are our Children's Schools?
 As we send our children to school everyday, it's important to know how clean and healthy their schools are. Because students spend approximately 14,000 hours inside buildings over the course of their school years, one area
of growing concern is air quality in schools - particularly for children suffering from allergies or asthma.
Asthma affects close to five million children and leads to 10 million missed school days every year, according to the
American Lung Association. That makes asthma the number one cause of school absenteeism due to chronic illness.
The lack of good quality of indoor air may adversely impact these children - and the adults who teach them. "We know
that fresh air, proper circulation and managing humidity are important in our homes," said Dr. Mary Lasley, Pediatric
Allergist. "Why shouldn't this be true in a school?"
Part of the air quality problem can be traced to energy conservation. Since the energy crisis in the 1970s, buildings
have been tightened up to conserve energy, leading to fresh air circulation problems. And school systems tend to
close down heat and air systems at night to further conserve energy. This can easily expand problems of poor air
circulation and create excess relative humidity in the school, contributing to mold and dust mite growth.
Fortunately, schools can take actions to reduce air quality problems - something as simple as constantly running the
HVAC system and proper maintenance can work wonders in a school's environment. "Removing dust and soil often
from all surfaces is a key element in maintaining good indoor air quality, along with proper ventilation and humidity
control," said Dr. Mary Lasley, a pediatric allergist. "Parents should work with administrators to ensure the school has
an environment that enhances learning while keeping our children comfortable."
Assuring a Clean School
Many factors may impact the air quality of the school environment, such as air drawn from outside sources, radon,
HVAC systems, building materials, activities within the building, people, printers and copiers, wet and dry markers,
and furnishings. Thus, the cleanliness of all surfaces within the school - the floor covering, ceiling tile, walls, windows,
furnishings, and counter tops - play an equal role in contributing to a school's air quality. Regular cleaning of these
surfaces can help decrease air quality problems.
Floor and carpet maintenance, for example, can reduce soil, dust and other allergens. Carpet is often used in schools
to provide comfort for sitting and walking and a quieter and safer learning environment. "Carpet is simply easier and
less expensive to care for than hard surface flooring," said Ken McIntosh, Technical Director of The Carpet and Rug
Institute. "All it takes is regular vacuuming, attention to spots, and extraction cleaning twice a year. Properly
maintained carpet can help improve air quality in schools because dust that settles on carpet is not easily
re-suspended and is kept out of the breathing zone."
With hard-surface flooring, dust settles to the floor, and as students move through hallways and classrooms, they stir
up these particles into the air they breathe. Dry mopping hard floors re-suspends dust; wet-mopping is often only a
dirty mop redistributing the dirt. Burnishing and polishing these floors is a time-consuming maintenance issue.
Carpet requires only two basic maintenance operations: regular vacuuming and periodic extraction cleaning.
Vacuuming heavy traffic areas, such as corridors and aisles between desks, on a daily basis removes a majority of
the dirt. This daily vacuuming takes less time and cleaning substances than the sweeping, mopping, buffing, stripping
and rewaxing that a hard-surface floor requires.
Routine vacuuming prevents soil from accumulating and helps to preserve the carpet's original beauty. Vacuum
cleaners should have high airflow (suction) and high-efficiency filtration. Using a vacuum cleaner bearing the CRI
Indoor Air Quality Testing Program label will assure that it will remove soil, contain the dust, and not damage the
carpet.
In addition, extraction cleaning of the whole facility should be performed just prior to the school year start and during
the school's winter holiday. This "deep" cleaning helps remove accumulated soil overlooked during daily vacuuming
activities. All moisture and cleaning agents should be removed from the carpet and it should be quickly dried.
Ventilate during the cleaning process, and be sure the building's heat and air system runs for several hours
afterwards.
Cleanliness is one of the factors that go into air quality, but one of the easiest to manage is cleaning carpet. Carpet
offers schools warmth, safety from slips and falls, sound absorption, and insulation. But, properly maintained carpet's
most important benefit may be its positive impact on air quality.
Reprinted with permission from ARA.
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