The health threat posed to young children confined in classrooms contaminated by mold is reaching a crisis stage in American schools. State lawmakers have slashed funding for school maintenance and renovations during the past several years making it nearly impossible for districts to afford basic operating costs such as electricity, paper, and teacher salaries. As a result of these cuts, the funds necessary to adequately address the causes of the health issues related to mold are often neglected.
For even healthy children mold can cause symptoms such as eye irritation, breathing distress, and skin irritation. The Institute of Medicine in a study done in 2004 found that there was sufficient evidence to link exposure to mold with upper respiratory infections in otherwise healthy children. Recent studies have also suggested a link between early exposure to mold and the development of asthma in some children. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009 issued a warning to highlight the link between indoor mold and respiratory illness in otherwise healthy children. According to the EPA, all molds have the potential to cause adverse health effects. There is no doubt that mold in our schools is a direct threat to health.
Mold requires oxygen, water, and a source of food to grow. Molds can grow on almost anything in a classroom including: desks, floor tile, ceiling tiles, paper, carpet, and insulation. Since mold requires moisture to grow, preventing sources of moisture and condensation is vital to any long term solution.
Much of our school mold problems can be directly linked to changes in building construction practices that began in the late 1970’s. Beginning in the 70’s, school design drastically changed in an effort to control fuel costs. Instead of having windows in classrooms that can be opened allowing fresh air to enter the room, buildings were tightly sealed with windows that were also permanently sealed. At this point we began placing our children in a sealed building, vulnerable to paint fumes, cleaning chemicals, and mold. In one of the more irresponsible decisions, we then installed carpeting in classrooms, auditoriums, and lunch rooms instead of tile. Carpeting installed on the concrete floor of a school is subject to frequent condensation issues.
Placing our children in a tightly sealed building dictated that school officials take full responsibility for indoor air quality. Administrators and custodial staffs were not prepared or trained to monitor temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels in a building and individual classrooms. School officials are often reluctant to even test for mold because they see it as opening a can of worms and afterwards they are no longer able to say, mold is not an issue in my school.
The key to controlling indoor mold growth is to control moisture. The solution begins with maintaining indoor relative humidity between 30% and 40%. The practice of turning off air conditioning and heating systems when school is not in session, especially during the high humidity of the summer months, is certain to result in condensation that leads to mold growth. As the temperature and humidity rise moisture condenses as it comes in contact with cooler indoor surfaces, such as windows, walls, water pipes, ductwork, and desks. In addition to these visible sources of condensation, there is a more serious issue that occurs in the plenum, a term for the area between the suspended ceiling tiles and the roof of the building. Any moisture that condenses from ductwork or leaks from the roof into this dark unseen area is introduced into a perfect environment for mold growth. The moisture and mold can then migrate from the plenum down the walls on the backside of dry wall and wall coverings directly into the classrooms.
At this point, there is some degree of doubt as to the ability of our schools to deal with mold and maintain healthy indoor air quality. We have often failed to control and monitor the inherent health dangers of placing young children in a sealed school building as evidenced by the number of schools that have been forced to close for this very reason.
We may have made a very serious and costly mistake when we sealed the windows of our classrooms and mistakenly thought we could substitute recycled air for the fresh clean natural ventilation provided by an open classroom window and “mother nature”.
