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| Blackboard from the rubble of the Explosion |
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Promote 21st Century Skills
Make 2009 a time to update your school's values and technical skills for 21st century citizens. Let's
move safety from the margins of school activity to the core of school
culture and curriculum.
Look for opportunities to promote safety in
science, language arts, history, labs, vocational education, occupational health and
safety, community service, school health and injury
prevention, school security, emergency preparedness, environmental
education, civic education, school maintenance and operations.
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Help make chemical safety part of your school's
curriculum and part of ongoing maintenance, operations, security audits
and safety plan.
1) Talk with parents, educators and
community leaders about making safety part of school culture. Ask: Is
there a chemical inventory? Is there a chemical hygiene plan? Is there
a chemical hygiene officer?
2) Create a universal zero tolerance policy for explosives in schools.
3)
Promote a sense of shared responsibility and accountability for
student, employee and visitor health and safety in all school areas and
activities.
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Call for Healthy Schools Heroes
Send your nominee's name, contact
information, and accomplishments to
healthykids@rcn.com
by February 15, 2010.
Do you know someone whose sense of responsibility,
inspirational leadership, and exemplary persistence and courage
protects children from school hazards and unhealthy school conditions?
I
created the Healthy Kids Healthy Schools Hero Award as an annual
opportunity to remember the 1937 New London Texas School Explosion (http://www.newlondonschool.org) and to study its lessons.
The story of the 1937 Texas School Explosion needs to be part of our
national legacy because today, more than 72 years later, the decision-making that led to the 1937 explosion is the same type of
decision-making that leaves dangerous old explosives and other hazards
in today’s classrooms, labs, closets and storerooms. Too many other safety code violations are routinely
ignored.
By nominating a Healthy Kids Healthy Schools Hero you can help make March 18 an annual Healthy Schools Heroes Day
dedicated to bringing the Lessons of the 1937 Texas School Explosion to
our nation's schools and celebrating the heroes
whose leadership saves lives. Their stories can inspire individuals
and groups to strengthen parent involvement and community partnerships
to make chemical safety and other urgent health and safety decisions a
high priority in every school.
The Healthy Schools Hero Award
winner will be announced in March, 2010. You can join with education,
environment, health and safety organizations and networks to celebrate
your local Healthy School Hero on March 18, on National Healthy Schools
Day 2009 (April 27, 2009), and at special events that promote child health and safety throughout the year.
The
Heroes Award is part of an ongoing campaign to promote citizen
awareness and responsible leadership to protect children from hazards
in schools. See What You Can Do.
Lessons of History
In
1937, the explosion killed over 300 people, mostly children, but no one
was held responsible because the Court of Inquiry concluded that "school
officials were just average individuals, ignorant or indifferent to the
need for precautionary measures, where they cannot, in their lack of
knowledge, visualize a danger or a hazard." (Court of Inquiry, 1937.)
The
disaster resulted in a law requiring that a warning odor be added to
natural gas, thus saving millions of lives all over the world.
However,
other important recommendations of the 1937 Court of Inquiry have yet
to be implemented in most 21st century schools: 1) schools need
technically trained administrators for modern school systems, 2)
schools need to do rigid inspections and more widespread public
education about avoiding and managing hazards, and 3) schools need a
comprehensive, rational safety code.
For school activities and resources and to help promote March 18 as National Healthy Schools Heroes Day go to What Can You Do. Let me know how it goes. Contact me: healthykids@rcn.com.
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| From the Editor, ASBJ
-- Glenn Cook, Editor-in-Chief
Having grown up on the Texas Gulf Coast, I know a little about
disasters, natural and manmade. Galveston County, where I was raised,
is home to the two worst disasters in Texas history—the 1900 hurricane
and the 1947 explosion that rocked my hometown of Texas City.
Yes, it’s a somewhat dubious distinction, but a definite conversation starter. And now, in a photo essay on Page 44,
it’s time to look back at number three on the list.
The March 18, 1937, explosion of the London School in New London, Texas, is the worst school disaster in U.S. history.
More than 300 people were killed in a blast that, by all rights and reason, could have been avoided.
Seventy-one
years later, the survivors still bear the emotional and physical scars
from that day. And 71 years later, schools still are making the same
mistakes in terms of how they keep chemicals safely away from children.
“Time to Heal” is both a slice of history and a cautionary tale for
school leaders. Read it and appreciate what the survivors have lived
with for more than seven decades, then go and ask questions about your
district’s chemical safety plans. You’ll be glad you did.
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