Aging School Buildings, Asbestos, and Our Teachers

May 8, 2008

Denver, CO As many school districts throughout the United States build new schools, there are still many teachers teaching in aging school buildings with asbestos in their walls. While the teachers in the new buildings are thankfully able to breathe the air within the building without fear of asbestos exposure, the teachers in aging buildings live with that fear everyday.



Our nation's school teachers have a high incidence of Mesothelioma that is related to asbestos exposure. It is a preventable health problem and many of the early century schools that still stand have worked to eliminate as much of the asbestos as possible. Many of these schools are scarred with holes in the walls that signify the large vacuums used to suck the asbestos out of them. Unfortunately, it is impossible to eliminate all of it.



The EPA has confirmed that most of the charter, primary, and secondary schools in the country have materials within them that contain asbestos. The situation was so severe that in 1986, Congress passed the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act as a measure to protect school employees and the school children from asbestos exposure.



It has never been surprising that workers in certain types of industries may be exposed, but it is surprising to hear that a teacher has developed Mesothelioma after years of teaching within a school building. There are many school buildings that still stand today that were built prior to World War II and asbestos was used in the construction of these buildings.



In 1999, it was determined that elementary and secondary schools were the number 3 most likely industry in which Mesothelioma caused deaths of the employees. Other ways in which secondary school teachers were exposed to asbestos was through the heating pads used in chemistry classes. Also, many of the asbestos-abatement projects that happened within schools exposed custodians and construction workers while working on the asbestos removal.



In the end, some of these buildings containing asbestos are being demolished to make room for new schools. Some of the construction workers are taking precautionary measures to avoid being exposed to the asbestos that still exists even after the asbestos-abatement projects that took place in the early 1990s. In many buildings, it was impossible to remove all of the asbestos without tearing down walls within the schools. The schools either didn't want to tear down walls or they did not have the funding to do so. So the removal may have helped, but it did not eradicate the problem.



By: Ginger Gillenwater