Bolinsky Celebrates National Healthy Schools Day
HARTFORD- State Rep. Mitch Bolinsky (R-Newtown) is reminding Newtown residents that today April 7th is National Healthy Schools Day.
“I am so proud Connecticut has been a leader on the issue of indoor air quality and protecting our students and educators. The goal of National Healthy Schools Day is to support a safe and healthy environment for all school children and personnel and the need to highlight the need for improved attention and protection of environmental health in schools for all school occupants,” said Rep. Bolinsky.
National Healthy Schools Day is a day of awareness to remind residents of the environmental health laws that promote healthy environments in Connecticut schools. National Healthy Schools Day is a national movement to improve schools’ indoor environmental quality, as it adversely impacts predominantly women and children. School environments play an important role in the health and academic success of children. Each school day, 55 million children and 7 million adults — 20 percent of the total U.S. population and 98 percent of all children—spend their days inside school buildings.
Over the last twelve years, Connecticut has been at the forefront of indoor air quality legislation. Connecticut law requires every school district to adopt and implement an indoor air quality program that provides for the maintenance and improvement of the indoor air quality of its facilities. School districts are also required to implement a green cleaning products program for cleaning and maintaining school buildings and facilities.
In a letter to all Connecticut school superintendents today, the state Departments of Public Health, Education, and Energy and Environmental Protection state that Connecticut’s laws are designed to protect Connecticut’s school children and personnel from exposure to health hazards such as radon, mold, toxic cleaning chemicals, pesticides and exhaust from idling vehicles. They encouraged superintendents to review these laws on an annual basis and offered resources to assist with compliance.
About one in 10 children in the United States now has asthma, which causes them to miss an average of four days of school a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.