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Children's Health > School Siting > Action Steps

Action Steps

It is up to local communities to educate school and elected officials on the school siting issues in their own backyards.  Working towards local and state passage of protective school siting policies is one way to protect kids from schools being built on poisoned grounds. There are several key steps to begin the work of safeguarding kids, all of which can be done by any motivated individual. 

For New School Construction:

1. Talk with your neighbors.  Share the information you have, and see if they would like to help pass a local policy to protect community schools from being built on a contaminated site. 
2. Host a meeting with others who may want to learn more about this issue, and help you pass a local policy.  At your first few meetings, you will need to make your plan.  As a group, brainstorm:
   
   
   • What are your goals?  Is it to pass a protective policy to prevent schools from being sited on or near toxic sites?  Is it to deal with a school already sited on or near a toxic site?
   • Who are your allies?  Who, locally, can help you work on this project?  Educators, School Boards, facilities departments, parent/teacher organizations, elected officials, environmental or health organizations, parents, etc?
   • Who has the power to pass a policy around school siting?  This will take a little research.  Currently, when a school is built in your community, who is involved in that decision?  The local School Board, the central school district, the state Department of Education?  What policies currently exist around school siting?  Does your district have a five or ten year plan for new school construction? 
   • What resources do you currently have to help you with this project?  Make a list of what each person in your group can contribute to this work. Include all resources, such as interested people, friends in high places, financial resources, access to a copier, fax machine, etc.
   • Make a Plan of Action.  What would constitute success for your group? That vision of success is your long-term goal.  What smaller goals will help you reach that long-term goal?  List all goals and the tasks that will be necessary to achieve them. Set up a timeline, and determine who will do what task.
   • At the end of each meeting, set a next meeting date and continue to meet with your group.  This group will build a cohesive voice of local people who are committed to this protective policy, give you visibility through numbers, spread the workload out over many people, and help you spread your message to get others involved.
   
   
3. Set up a meeting with key players to introduce the issue, and your willingness to help them develop a policy that would prevent schools from being built on contaminated sites.  Many people have simply never thought about this issue, or have not known how to develop guidelines protecting schools from hazardous chemicals.  Education and a positive, achievable plan of action can go a long way toward achieving success. 
4. Frame your message as positive, proactive, and trend setting.  It is!
5. These guidelines are not “one size fits all.”  Your community may have to adapt them to address your local situation.  For instance, the depth of the groundwater table, soil composition, wind and weather patterns, types of industry, and available school siting space need to be considered in detail, and will affect your approach. 
6. Be prepared to compromise with your elected officials, if necessary. Cash flow, current policies, and other limitations will affect their perspectives on this issue.  However, a group of knowledgeable and committed community members can help develop a policy that meets everyone’s needs.  At the outset of your work, determine as a group, which guidelines are not negotiable.
7. Continue planning, meeting, setting and achieving your organizational goals as you move through this process, and of course, for additional assistance in organizing to pass local ordinances, contact us.

Schools Located on or within a Half-mile of a Known Toxic Waste Site

If your local school is near a toxic site, it does not necessarily mean that your child is endangered.  What it does mean is that you should check to see if a danger is present.

1. Drive around the contaminated site and see where it actually is, if you don’t already know.  How close is the site to where your child walks to and from school each day?
2. Get information on the Superfund site. Use the GoogleMaps-enabled Superfund locator by the Center for Public Integrity to learn about the sites near you. You can also contact the city or county department of environment and ask them where you can find information on the site.  You also might want to check to see what was beneath the land that your local school is built on.  Often this information is located at a local library. You can also contact us or a local environmental group to help you decipher the information and its potential threats, if any.
3. Begin to organize a group to work on this issue.
4. Contact us for assistance, resources and technical support.

Please share any local initiative you are working on, so that we can help spread the message to other communities, and continue to build the base of local parents and schools taking actions to protect the health and well being of our children.