Page 22 - School Planning & Management, October 2017

FACILITIES { LEARNING SPACES }
U.S. Schools Struggle to Maintain a Healthy Learning Environment
Educational institutions face mounting risks from mold, asbestos and hidden underground environmental issues.
By Miles Foxworth
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AROUND THE COUNTRY ARE struggling to manage mold, asbestos in the walls and even unknown contamination underground — taxing their
budgets and damaging public perceptions. A recent legal ruling in Malibu, Calif., mandating that the local schools proactively remove all asbestos, rather than just managing areas with known exposures, will likely drive more legal actions against schools in coming years. As environmental liabilities and related lawsuits from concerned citizens increase, K–12 school administrators nationwide are looking for ways to economically manage these risks, and some states are starting to mandate insurance coverage for environmental exposures.
Scope of the Problem
There are nearly 100,000 public schools in the U.S., used by over 55 million students, staff and administrators, that are, on average, over 44 years old. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, environmental factors including ventilation and air conditioning were found to be unsatisfactory in up to 17 percent of schools. The majority of U.S. public schools (73 percent) were built between before 1969, and almost all schools built between 1950 and the late ‘70s have hazardous PCBs in the caulk around the windows, and possibly elsewhere.
Schools can improve the environmental health of their build- ings, and limit their environmental contamination risks, by working with insurers to develop risk management solutions that
22 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / OCTOBER 2017
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