[Judy Pino] 
Hello, and welcome to Green 
Scene, EPA's series of
environmental podcasts that 
you can take with you.
I'm Judy Pino with 
the Office of Multimedia.
With nearly 56 million 
people or 20 percent of
the U.S. population spending 
their days inside elementary
and secondary schools, 
indoor air quality
problems in schools are 
a significant concern.
Over half of U.S. schools have 
problems linked to poor
indoor air quality.
And to help identify, correct 
and prevent this problem,
the EPA developed the Indoor Air 
Quality Tools for Schools Kit,
a comprehensive source which 
helps schools maintain
a healthy environment.
And here to tell us about 
the program, we have
Elizabeth Cotsworth, the 
Director for the Office
of Radiation and Indoor Air, 
and Jeff Moquin with
the school board of 
Broward County, Florida,
and 2007 IAQ Tools for Schools 
Model of Sustained Excellence
Award winner.
Thank you both
for joining us.
[Jeff Moquin] 
Thank you for 
having us.
[Judy Pino] 
Well, Elizabeth, 
let's start with you.
As we mentioned in the intro, 
20 percent of the population
spends their time indoors.
What are the dangers of bad 
indoor air quality?
[Elizabeth Cotsworth] 
In schools, there's a range 
of adverse health impacts
that have been noticed.
They range from the severe, 
like increased frequency of
asthma episodes and allergic 
reactions, bronchitis and
other respiratory distresses, 
and also to the less severe
such as dizziness and fatigue 
and scratchy throat during
the school day.
And asthma accounts for over 
14 million days of lost school,
of absenteeism.
And even those minor illnesses 
account for lack of
concentration on behalf of 
the students, the inability
to perform mental calculations 
and to remember what their
teacher has 
told them.
There's also costs.
It is 5-30 times more expensive 
to repair or renovate
a facility or equipment than it 
does to do ongoing maintenance.
[Judy Pino] 
So it's better to have the 
preventative measures,
and that's why we have 
the Tools for Schools Kit.
Tell us a little 
bit about that.
[Elizabeth Cotsworth] 
Okay, the kit is designed to 
promote action on behalf of
schools and school districts to 
act responsibly and to manage
and promote good indoor 
air quality in the
school facilities.
The kit is a very flexible, 
comprehensive, as you said,
set of tools and resources 
for schools to use.
There is a video where you can 
actually walk through a
school and identify the problems 
that they are encountering.
There is an easy-to-use 
problem-solving wheel,
rather innovative, that again, 
tells people and matches up
the symptoms and the factual 
situation with the sources
of the problem and perhaps 
some solutions.
There's also policy memoranda 
and communication guides that
the schools
can use.
It's provided free to anyone who 
asks, and it really does provide
for low- to almost no-cost 
actions on behalf of
the schools.
[Judy Pino] 
And somebody who would know 
all about that is Jeff,
who implemented it in 
Broward County schools.
You have the sixth largest 
school district in the country,
283 schools and a population 
of over 250,000-plus students
and staff.
How did you implement 
Tools for Schools,
and how's it 
doing so far?
Is it working?
[Jeff Moquin] 
Yeah, you know, our involvement 
with the Tools for Schools
Program, I would like to have 
said it came about
as a proactive measure, 
but unfortunately,
it was really in response to 
a series of issues that
the district had been dealing 
with that culminated with
a concern about occupancy 
of two elementary schools.
At that time, we were struggling 
with credibility,
and so the Tools for Schools 
Program and the EPA offered
that credibility, so once 
we partnered with the
Environmental Protection Agency 
to implement the program,
we began to really receive 
that support we needed
organizationally to get behind 
the program to implement it.
As far as its implementation 
though, obviously, given our
size, that created 
some issues for us.
So the way we decided to 
implement the program was
through a phased approach.
And so the first year, in 2003, 
we started with 35 schools as
a pilot, and we went ahead and 
we've been continuously growing.
And this year, we just held our 
phase five training, and now we
have over 145 schools that are 
participating in the program.
The way that we've developed 
our indoor air quality
management program is really 
to go into two phases.
One is a more proactive phase 
where we use the checklist from
the kit, and we've developed an 
online Web-based survey that
our occupants are able to take, 
and then from that information,
we go ahead and conduct 
investigations and initiate
corrective action 
as is necessary.
And then we've also developed 
an ad hoc ability to respond
to any complaint that we may 
get on a day-to-day basis.
In terms of the response, 
it's been overwhelming.
The schools that are 
participating in it,
we get far less complaints 
than we do in
non-participating schools.
And we've also had with some 
ancillary issues with
worker's compensation, for 
instance, in terms of staff
members who may have been 
soliciting illnesses;
we've seen large drops in 
those numbers as well in
participating schools.
[Judy Pino] 
That's outstanding.
Now explain to us why Broward 
School District was recognized
in this case.
Elizabeth?
[Elizabeth Cotsworth] 
Well, we run a national award 
program to recognize schools
and school districts like 
Broward County for their
progress and their adoption 
of indoor air quality
management principles, 
and Broward County has
consistently shown leadership 
in this area.
After winning the first 
Excellence Award in 2005,
they further institutionalized 
their commitment to indoor air
quality into all of their 
facilities operations,
as Jeff has indicated.
And so last year, they won our 
Sustained Excellence Award,
and shares that with only nine 
other schools and school
districts so far, so we're very 
proud of their leadership.
[Judy Pino] 
Now today, half the schools 
in the U.S., such as Jeff's,
have adopted Tools for Schools, 
but there's still many more who
have not.
What is EPA doing to 
encourage participation,
and what can parents 
or guardians do?
[Elizabeth Cotsworth] 
Okay, in addition to promoting 
the Tools for Schools Kit and
the award programs, we provide a 
national symposium every year
to provide the most up-to-date 
training and ability to network
for the school stakeholders, 
and there are many different
stakeholders who attend.
And in terms of parents, what 
they can do is to get involved,
particularly if they have 
a child who is asthmatic
or being ill 
at school.
And this kit is available 
to them, also for free,
and they can go armed with that 
and suggest and recommend and
volunteer to get involved in 
a Tools for Schools Program
at their school.
But certainly, it's an 
investment in their
children's health and 
in their education.
[Judy Pino] 
And finally, Jeff, 
I want to end it with you.
What would you tell anybody 
out there's who's listening,
maybe some of our school 
officials all over the country,
about how easy it is 
to implement it.
What advice would
you give?
[Jeff Moquin] 
Well, I would encourage my peers 
to not wait for an IAQ crisis
before being concerned about 
implementing a program such
as Tools for Schools.
The kit is free.
The support you get 
from the EPA is free.
And a lot of protocols that you 
may already be doing in your
district are really geared 
to align with what the
Tools for Schools 
Kit talks about.
So I would encourage them not to 
wait, and to get involved today.
[Judy Pino] 
Well, thank you both.
Congratulations, Jeff, for your 
proactive efforts in keeping
the children of South Florida 
safe while in school.
[Jeff Moquin] 
Thank you very much.
[Judy Pino] 
And thanks, Elizabeth.
[Elizabeth Cotsworth] 
You're welcome.
[Judy Pino] 
And to find out how you can 
do the same, please visit
www.epa.gov/iaq/schools.