Principal Points - "Health and Safety"

Past Principal Points

Health & Safety: Mold In Portables

With 180 students in kindergarten through grade twelve, there are bound to be an assortment of scrapes, bumps and minor injuries over the course of a school year. It is a credit to our students and staff that there are so few in any given year. We try to keep our rules to a minimum, but there are certain restrictions on play which are necessary when there are large groups.

In addition to creating a structured, supervised environment, we also want to ensure that equipment is properly maintained. We move quickly to repair anything which appears faulty or dangerous. Student safety is not an area which we are going to compromise. If something cannot be fixed, then it will be off limits.

Lately the news has carried several stories regarding health issues which are of concern to schools. One has to do with peanut allergies. Some students are so allergic to nuts that they can, in fact, die from a very small exposure. There is some debate about whether schools should become "nut-free" zones. (If only…..J ) And, the debate is not as simple as one might think. For example, several parents with allergic children do not favor this approach because they feel it will lull their children into a false sense of security. They want them to be trained to never accept food from another child and always ask questions about ingredients, etc.

Another item aired briefly on CTV News last night and will be the topic of a story on W-5 tonight. It concerns the incidence of mold in portable classrooms. Because these buildings tend to leak more than permanent structures, they can develop mold in the walls which then gets in the air and can affect breathing. This is a new issue, but we are interested in finding out all we can. To that end I have already conducted a preliminary survey of our student population to determine the incidence of respiratory ailments in the school. At this point, it appears that about thirty (17%) students have some form of chronic respiratory ailment. Of these, only about eight have been diagnosed since our move into the portable classrooms in 1995. Most of the thirty have had long standing conditions, often since birth. Some of them are related strictly to exercise, etc. At this point, I see no cause for alarm.

I will be watching the show tonight to learn more information, but I rather suspect that our situation is significantly better than that of many schools using portables: Ours all have windows. Each has its own furnace with a fresh air intake. Because they are unattached, students and teachers are opening the doors to the outside much more often and providing a lot of air exchange. Because all walls are exposed to the sun any moisture seeping from the roof will dissipate faster than if all the buildings were attached to one another. All of this works to reduce the concentration in the air of any mold present which may be in the walls. In any event, I wanted you to know that we are looking into this and will keep you informed.

Brian Hazeltine, B.Ed., M.A.
Principal, Airdrie Koinonia Christian School