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Indoor Air Quality

Indoor
Air Quality

“Poor
indoor air quality remains one of the top health
concerns that NEA members face! What’s
more, as teachers and education support professionals,
we also concerned about our students, because
we know full well that our working conditions
are the students’ learning conditions.
We need EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Tools
for Schools Program because it works!”


Reg Weaver,
NEA president
2003
IAQ Tools for Schools Symposium

Read Reg Weaver’s
Remarks in their entirety.

PDF format Word Format

Americans
spend about 90% of their day indoors—in classrooms,
in offices, and at home. Furthermore, pollution
levels indoors can be two to five times—and
occasionally more than 100 times—higher
than outdoor levels. To address this and other
related
issues, NEA HIN created the Indoor Air Quality
(IAQ) in Schools Program to provide NEA members
information on ways to monitor and improve indoor
air quality in schools.

There
are many things individuals can do to improve
IAQ in schools. What’s more, these activities
don’t have to be expensive or highly technical.
They can involve simple solutions—such as
banning smoking in the school and on school grounds
or uncovering a blocked air vent.

The
goal of the IAQ in Schools Program is to increase
awareness about IAQ issues among public school
employee members as well as the students and communities
they serve, and to foster action on IAQ problems
in school buildings through the use of the IAQ
Tools for Schools Kit.

The
NEA HIN offers school employees a number of other
services and resources through its Environmental
Protection Agency-funded program that are designed
to improve IAQ in schools. These services and
resources include:


  • funding NEA members to attend the annual IAQ
    Tools for Schools National Symposium;
  • sharing
    IAQ information in various publications such
    as NEA Today and The Source: Indoor Air Quality
    and Your Schools newsletter; and,
  • conducting
    workshops at the Education Support Professional’s
    annual conference, UniServ cluster trainings,
    and other regional and state conferences.

In
the near future, NEA HIN will compile examples
and models of successful agreements between unions
and school systems on proactive and preventive
methods for dealing with IAQ problems, and prepare
case studies that show how NEA members are successfully
implementing IAQ management plans in their schools
and school districts.