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2007 Healthy Schools Hero: Diane Ethier,
Pomfret Center,
Connecticut
Every year to mark the anniversary of the
March 18, 1937 Texas School Explosion, I salute a Healthy Schools Hero
whose inspirational leadership protects children and teachers from school
hazards and unhealthy school conditions.
A Cautionary Tale
On March 18, 1937, in the small oil-rich town
of New London, Texas, a series of false economies and efforts to save cut costs
in the new school's heating system led to a gas explosion that killed 319
students, teachers and visitors while in the supposed safe haven of a public
school.
Today, there is a website (http://www.newlondonschool.org) and a museum dedicated
to remembering the "lost generation" and educating people future
generations about the tragedy and its lessons. The story serves as a cautionary
tale about the failure to prioritize safety and illustrates how painful it is
to live with such devastating loss when opportunities to prevent them were
overlooked or ignored. After the school explosion, laws were passed to
require a warning odor in natural gas but other recommendations have yet to be
implemented in most 21st century schools -- to hire technically trained
administrators for modern school systems, to conduct more rigid inspections and
more widespread public education, and to adopt a comprehensive, rational safety
code.
Ethier Breaks the Silence
Today, Diane Ethier is a Healthy School Hero because
she is an environmental health resource and mentor to hundreds of people. In a
variety of roles, she helps others to break the silence about school
hazards and to overcome the pervasive denial and indifference about school
conditions that that lead to serious illness in schools. Her courage, her skill as a communicator,
and her persistance are bringing the Lessons of the 1937 Texas School
Explosion to school systems in her state and far beyond.
Ethier is a retired Calculus and Algebra
Teacher who taught for 30 years. She knows from
personal experience how school officials typically overlook opportunities to
take action when conditions in schools make people sick.
Now,
Ethier is a Training Specialist for Connecticut's US EPA IAQ Tools for
Schools program (TfS), a
comprehensive toolkit that can help schools prevent and correct indoor air
quality problems. She educates school-based environmental
health teams to be responsible for ongoing problem identification and hazard
prevention and control. To date, Ethier has done sixty trainings
including IAQ Basics, School Walkthroughs, Refresher and Custodian Programs for
personnel from 200 school districts. Ethier has also presented on "Indoor
Air Quality in Schools" at both Connecticut Education Association and
National Education Association Conferences.
Ethier is also Acting
President of the Connecticut Foundation for Environmentally Safe Schools (ConnFESS)
, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to promoting policies, practices and resources that
protect school occupants from environmental health hazards. She
is also a part time Organizer for the Connecticut Education Association. She
attends the NIH-NHLBI National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP)
as a voice for occupational and environmental health on behalf of the National
Education Association.
ConFESS is the VOICE for
Students and Employees
In the past five years, ConFESS is widely
acknowledged to be the voice
for the growing number
of students and school employees who are sick because of polluted school
air. ConFESS is also a leader of a growing state and national network of
concerned citizens committed to making health and safety a priority when
schools are sited, designed, built, maintained and renovated.
During National
Healthy Schools Day in 2006, ConnFESS promoted an Advocacy Checklist
to
help parents and school staff evaluate how effectively a school is adopting and
implementing its IAQ program, mandated by the new Connecticut Law.
For more information on ConnFESS activities go
to http://pollutionfreeschools.org/
Diane's Story
Diane Ethier was teaching calculus and algebra in a wing of a high school with a leaking roof,
moldy carpets, broken ventilation
equipment and poor maintenance. One press report called it a monument to
"budget cuts and deferred maintenance." It took Ethier three
years to figure out it was the building making her sick.
Finally, after
comparing symptoms and location and timing patterns with a fellow teacher who
had taught in the same wing of the building, she recognized her symptoms as a
mold allergy. Diane's physicians confirmed that her symptoms were related
to conditions in the high school. Although her colleagues and students
were also having symptoms, they feared complaining or did not understand the
connection between the building and their illness. And, her union officials
cautioned her not to open her mouth, warning her "You'll get
transferred."
Ethier recognized the need to educate others. Ethier
went to her Superintendent to inform him. However, as in too many other
schools, the results of "air testing "showed nothing was
wrong." School officials told her the problem was "all in her
head."
In 1998, her physician Dr. Eileen Storey
was doing a National Science
Foundation Study on the association between respiratory disease and indoor
environments. Her special interest is to develop exposure assessment tools that
help characterize indoor risk factors.
When the town selectman turned down Dr. Storey's offer to
evaluate the high school for free, Ethier decided she was "not going to
take it anymore." She turned
anger into action. Ethier conducted a teacher's health survey. 60% of the
teachers reported that they were affected by poor IAQ in the building but only
two teachers were willing to say it publicly.
Turning Pain Into Purpose
Ethier became an advocate for the US EPA IAQ TfS
Program. It took persistence and courage. In fact, it took three years plus a
change in leadership (a new superintendent, new selectman, and a new union
structure) to get her school to adopt the IAQ TfS program.
The TfS audit system identified serious problems – mold and
high levels of carbon dioxide. As a result, the school made some
improvements -- the roof was repaired, carpets were removed from the library and
hallways, and some unit ventilators were cleaned. Maintenance staff
stopped covering up problems by spray-painting stained ceiling tiles.
Ethier became the school TfS program coordinator and then the
school district coordinator. However, the more time Ethier spent in the school, the sicker she
got.
In 2002, Ethier went on sick leave for
occupational lung disease. Dr. Storey specified the repairs and maintenance
improvements that were conditions for Diane's return to school. However, the
school refused to make the changes because the town was soon to build new high
school. Thus, people continued to occupy the old sick building for two
more years. Eventually, four staff members filed Worker's Comp claims,
three were permanently removed from the building by their physicians, and
another three chose to retire. While Ethier was out, the TfS program flagged.
(The new high school opened for occupancy on September 2005. It already has a
leaky roof, mold in air ducts, and other problems. Ethier knows that "If
we'd had Tools for Schools in place for the past ten years, none of this would
have happened.")
In 2001, Ethier joined and eventually
became a leader of the statewide grassroots group, Connecticut Foundation for
Environmentally Safe Schools (ConnFESS),
formerly known as the Canary Committee. She worked
to create legislation to provide a systematic evaluation and inventory of
conditions and maintenance practices in schools and to promote policies and
resources that protect children and school
personnel.
In December 2003 Diane
took early retirement. She was down, but not out. Ethier continued to work to
break the silence and to educate her fellow teachers, union members, and
legislators about the need for standards for healthy schools. She presented at
professional conferences and testified many times before the Connecticut General Assembly on school
environmental health issues. Today, Ethier's health depends on avoiding buildings with
poor ventilation, damp moldy areas and fragrances.
The need for more champions
According to the report by Environment & Human Health,
Inc., A Survey of
Asthma Prevalence In Elementary School Children (2003)
there is a high incidence of asthma in Connecticut's school children and
teaching is the most common occupation associated with the development of
work-related asthma. The report quotes surveillance studies of
occupational asthma by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health (NIOSH) that blamed indoor air pollutants as the top two causes of
work-related asthma. (The actual rate is unknown because most cases are
not recognized and reported. Tracking work-related asthma and working
conditions depends on physicians recognizing and reporting work-related asthma
to state public health agencies.)
Advocacy Works
In 2003 the Connecticut Indoor Air Quality Bill for Schools passed
by a 35 –1 margin in the Connecticut Senate and a 150-1 vote in the Connecticut
House of Representatives. The Connecticut IAQ School Law states that all school
districts must have a program in place to address indoor air in schools by July
2003. The TFS program fulfills that requirement. The text of the law, P.A.
03-220, can be found at http://www.cga.gov.
Kenny Foscue, Health Educator for the
Connecticut Department of Public Health and leader of the Connecticut School
Indoor Environment Resource Team, calls Ethier "a catalyst."
After inviting Ethier to present at several Tools for Schools trainings, Foscue
asked Ethier to become a trainer herself.
Today, the Connecticut School Indoor Environment
Resource Team has 24 coalition partners dedicated to training schools
to implement the TfS program. ConnFESS is one of the coalition
partners. Ethier's dream is to
see every state with enough funding to do more than just training but
to fund
follow up training and support for school TfS teams, to track school
TfS implementation, and to ensure enforcement of all school
environmental health laws.
Lessons Learned
Ethier knows that it is still too
rare to find a school where anyone has primary responsibility to protect
children and teachers from environmental hazards or to enforce public health,
chemical hygiene, occupational health and safety, and occupancy standards. Every school needs a champion, someone who is a
driving force to keep environmental health programs alive and to prioritize
health and safety in schools.
Most significantly, Ethier shows how grassroots
organizations, professional associations and state and federal agencies can be
allies that enable parents, teachers and school officials to take leadership
for school safety. Most significantly, Ethier shows how grassroots
organizations, professional associations and state and federal agencies can be
allies that enable parents, teachers and school officials to speak up and take
leadership for school safety.
For more on the US EPA IAQ TfS program, current research on
indoor air quality on student performance and asthma, mold, pest management,
and chemical cleanout campaigns, go to www.epa.gov/iaq
and National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities www.edfacilities.org .
Countdown to Healthy Schools Day April 30, 2007.
Find Healthy School Day activities and partners at Healthy Schools Network .
Find additional information and
suggestions on school programs and events to improve school safety and health
security especially for students with asthma, allergies and other
environmentally triggered conditions at www.healthy-kid.info .
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