Recorded presentation

Claire L. Barnett, BA, MBA, Executive Director, Healthy Schools Network, Inc., 773 Madison Avenue, Albany, NY 12208, 518-462-0632, healthyschools@aol.com

Children are more vulnerable to environmental health hazards than adults and cannot protect themselves from them. Exposures and injuries at an early age can lead to a lifetime of chronic health problems. Even with traumatic and tragic events that contaminate wide areas, schools stay open and provide a "normalizing" day for all students and families. This complex dual role of both educator and caretaker is deeply underestimated by federal, state, and local agencies, as well as by Congress, at the same time that the health and environment agencies readily acknowledge that indoor air pollution may 5 to 100 times worse than outdoor air pollution and schools nationally face a crisis in IAQ. The Schools of Ground Zero offer profound lessons for everyone concerned about protecting vulnerable populations.

Learning Objectives: Attendees will learn

• Details of the actual evacuation experience and lack of preparedness of local public schools.
• Lack of any agency responsibility or resources for school facility de-contaminations.
• Roles of voluntary, local Parent Associations in promoting children's environmental health. 4. Unusual challenges encountered by parents of special needs students.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Healthy Schools Network, Inc. co-published Schools of Ground Zero with APHA in 2002. I commissioned the research, top-edited the text, worked out the parent survey on student health with local Parent Associations.

Recorded presentation