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Rodents, poor ventilation at Jamaica Plain school
By adamg on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 3:22pm
Geeky Mama summarizes a state Department of Public Health report on the Agassiz elementary school, where staffers have reported headaches and respiratory issues and students have a higher-than-average rate of asthma.
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Comments
We had no problem at the old
We had no problem at the old Agassiz. If it got stuffy, the teacher opened the window. Apparently, that was too "old school" for the architect of the new Agassiz.
And what came in the window?
Sometimes the indoor air is poor, but the outdoor air has traffic exhaust and pollen as well.
Do you walk around wearing a
Do you walk around wearing a respirator all day? Don't be kooky. What came in the window was air. Like the air you breathe.
I think that if you get
I think that if you get enough hysterical people to start complaining about mysterious headaches or whatever, and you start poking around and testing air quality and ventilation in ANY building you are going to find things that are not perfect.
Whit
Do you have a clue?
In my professional life, I deal with research on air quality. I have spent a substantial amount of my time this last year dealing with the EPA on the science they use to set standards now that they have sped up the time table for revising standards for various criteria pollutants
So I know what is in the goddamn air.
That "regular breathing air" historically contained lead, before it was removed from gasoline and lead levels dropped precipitously. Urban air near highways and roadways contains a stew of particulates and irritant gasses from the local tailpipes. Historically, the air also contained heavy metals and SO2 and just about anything else that was spewed forth from L-street, Everett, Cambridge power plants before those plants cleaned up or closed, not to mention home heating systems and diesel engines prior to the limits on sulfur in fuel.
Air conditioning and closed windows reduce personal exposure by substantial amounts.
But, hey, don't let the air quality science get in the way of your pollyanish declarations. Or the "kooky" facts put forth by people who have seen the data from air quality monitoring backpacks worn by children in these areas of the city.
Let me guess, an ambulance
Let me guess, an ambulance chasing class action lawsuit ninja lawyer is going to drop in to 'save the day'. By saving the day, I mean lining their pockets, and few plaintiffs, with a settlement paid for by taxpayers, which will do nothing to improve the air quality of the school.
Before everyone piles on
Before everyone piles on, the Agassiz is a mess. Last time I was in there (about a year ago), they didn't have potable water. Big signs in the bathroom warning against drinking the water, and bottled water coolers in the hallways instead.
Agassiz is a mess
I know somebody who works there and would very much like to leave for a building that doesn't make her physically ill.
Ya gotta love that seventies architecture. They tore down a beautiful building to put that leaky, moldy pile of crap there.
No-win situation
It was a beautiful building - once upon a time. If it was at all like all the beautiful school buildings that were of the same vintage in my community, it was a beautiful nightmare to deal with - poor heat, expensive to heat, mold, water that you can't drink because of lead pipes, no hot water, asbestos, lead paint, and collapsing ceilings. That's before you get to the issues of accessability, rooms for special education, cafeterias, libraries, gyms, etc. that many older buildings in the region didn't have.
I doubt anybody would have been much better off, if my son's first two years in such a beautiful building were any guide.
Old Buildings . . .
. . . can be made to work. If we followed Swirly's advice we'd all be working and living in air-conditioned concrete-block crap.
Whit
Maintenence Costs Kill
Old buildings work if you have Harvard's endowment to hire top architects to rehab them to solve all their problems and to maintain them.
Problem is, "making them work" costs LOTS of money that school systems do not have and taxpayers are not willing to spend. Hence the ceilings in a 2nd grade classroom collapsing, water that can't be used for drinking, etc.
I don't like cinder block crap and I'd prefer that ventilation be such that ac isn't needed. I also want buildings that are efficient and healthy. If you are willing to pay the taxes to heat old buildings, maintain old buildings to safety and health standards, etc. and make them work as functional school buildings that meet the needs of modern requirements then go right ahead.
New around here
Swirly, you're new around here, so you can be excused for speaking from ignorance. You seem to be comparing the old Agassiz with something you remember from Portland. If you lived in Boston, you would probably be familiar with the wave of school buildings that went up around the same time as the old Agassiz (now, not the old old Agassiz, but the new old Agassiz). There are probably dozens of them in the old streetcar suburbs area of Boston.
Right now, few of them are being used as schools, but almost all of them are being used. Most of them are being used as condos or apartments, like the Longfellow in Rozzie (b. 1897, closed 1989, reno 1998). The Agassiz is one of the few that got torn down.
These are buildings that were very well designed and built. They were model schools, and some still are. Because they typically don't get used for class during the summer, and they have high ceilings, big windows that open, and good cross-ventilation, they don't require air conditioning when used for their original purpose. Conversely, because they are massive brick buildings with walls a couple of feet thick, they don't take as much to heat as you might think. This is architecture that is appropriate for the region. These are good, strong, elegant buildings. There's a reason why pre-war architecture is so valued. You really don't need "Harvard's endowment to hire top architects." They hired top architects in the first place, when these buildings were built. There's nothing wrong with them except being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is an unmitigated shame that we aren't still using them.
The advent of air conditioning and the mid-century optimism about man's ability to overcome nature lead to a lot of very bad architecture, the new Agassiz included. Lessons learned over hundreds of years were thrown out. The Agassiz would be inoperable without its modern AC/heat system, and it is precisely this system that is (typical of such systems) full of mold and making people sick. The construction of the Agassiz is with big concrete slabs (not cinderblocks), and when these slabs settle and shift, they cause irreparable foundation leaks.
We all know that there are problems with everything. You are always happy to point them out. But every little problem is not a reason for hyperbole (i.e. maintenance costs kill) and hyperventilating. It is also helpful to recognize that some things actually do work better than others: the old Agassiz building would likely be in better shape today (like its surviving peers are) than the new Agassiz building.
Ayup
Kidlet's school, consisting of two of those old-fashioned, 1930s-era brick behemoths, have never had mold problems, unlike the nearby Ohrenberger, which is your basic 1970s-era "suburban" schools.
Of course, her school doesn't have a gym or an actual lunchroom (back in the day, kids ate lunch at home and didn't need a gym), but that's another issue.
Why did it come down?
The original Agassiz was torn down long before I moved to Boston. Why was it torn down?
I'm not new around here
25 years, two months. Not new.
Portland has nothing to do with this. In any case, the schools I attended were either built at the end of the 19th century or immediately post-WW2 - just like pretty much everywhere on either coast.
I've also professionally studied indoor air quality in school systems in MA and CT. But hey, I'm "new" around here so actually knowing the mix of architectural styles of schools in districts in the area and how that modifies the indoor air quality and the levels of things that I have measured in those environments doesn't count! I just have to be born here to understand that.
My experience locally is that I live in a community where the "old schools" were inadequate and hazardous NIGHTMARES of collapsing ceilings, mold, lead paint, rotting windows, extreme heating bills for poor temperature control, non-potable water, no hot water, no cafeterias, etc. The state built NEW SCHOOLS in 2001 and 2003 that do NOT have these issues. Of course they might yet if the past attitudes toward regular maintenance prevail.
1970s era schools in this region were built before there was a good understanding of these indoor air quality issues. Most of them in the Northeast are disasters because they were built without many windows and tight insulation that we now know breeds mold and makes them difficult to keep cool. The focus was on energy efficiency in the wake of the energy crisis that made the heating bills completely unaffordable. In some cases, they were built to deal with exploding enrollments and many don't conform to their design plans due to substitutions and changes during construction. The indoor air in schools of this era is typically lacking in fresh-air (underdesigned or failing ventilation systems), high in CO2 when occupied (rebreathed air = higher rate of respiratory disease transmission), lots of biological stuff (mold, basically, from poor ventilation and high humidity) and high VOC levels compared to "traditional" classrooms. Further problems emerged because districts then FAILED to systematically maintain systems and structures properly because people wanted to starve government starting at home.
That doesn't even get to the point that, in some locations and in past eras, the outdoor air quality around these lovely, cross-ventilated schools was quite hazardous, particularly in the era of coal and leaded gasoline.
Converting to condos means a thorough renovation, which solves most of the problems in the older buildings. It does not, however, solve the inadequate facilities issues. In many communities, this sort of renovation is one that taxpayers don't think worthy of school children. It costs too much money. I've lived in a community grappling with these issues and had kids in the school systems as they were resolved, but hey, dad's sperm and mom's egg met somewhere else so I'm not qualified to comment on that either.
So you should know better
So you've been around long enough, and have studied the issue enough, that you should know better. You demonstrate that you're quite cognizant of the particular problems that a poorly-built 70s school like the Agassiz has and a 19th century like the old Agassiz didn't have. It's one of the dozens of areas in which you are a special expert. And you recognize that your response is based on historically poor school maintenance in Mefuh rather than the actual maintenance of 19th century school buildings in Boston. You even note how much easier it is to convince voters to spend much more money to build a shiny new building instead of renovating good historic buildings for less.
But still you want to argue. Okay, you've convinced me: it's not a knowledge issue, it's a character issue. You're just contrary. You'd argue against yourself.
Coal smoke. Your argument now is coal smoke.
Hey, good luck with that. Maybe the solution is to put the kids back in the time machine and get them out of Dickens' era. That ought to fix it!
I think if majority of the
I think if majority of the students are experiencing this, it's possible that there's something wrong with the air they breathe and this should not be taken for granted.