Free EPA Software is Now Available to Help Schools Evaluate and Manage Environmental Issues
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed the Healthy School Environments Assessment Tool (HealthySEAT) – a free software tool to help school districts evaluate and manage school facilities for key environmental, safety, and health issues. HealthySEAT is designed to be customized and used by district-level staff to conduct self-assessments of school facilities and to track and manage information on environmental conditions on each school within the district.
According to the EPA, there are approximately 120,000 public, private, charter, and tribal schools in the United States, and many of them contain environmental and safety hazards that may pose risks to children and staff. School environmental hazards can include chemical releases, pesticide exposures, flaking lead paint, mold and other indoor air quality problems, and damaged asbestos-containing building materials.
The guidance provided by HealthySEAT is intended to improve the health of students and staff by ensuring that all potential environmental and safety hazards in schools are being properly managed. The software can help school districts identify and correct hazards before they result in health problems; productivity and performance losses; school closures; costly building clean-ups; regulatory enforcement actions; and community concern and resource-draining media attention. In addition, HealthySEAT can help school districts collect school- and hazard-specific data necessary to make a compelling case for needed renovation, repair and maintenance dollars; as well as demonstrate to the community that the district is committed to the health and safety of children and staff.
HealthySEAT includes a web page, user’s manual, and tracking software. From within the tracking software, the district can generate and print a customized inspection list and a customized guidebook. The software has three primary components: customize for district; school-specific assessment information; and reports/output menu.
The software also comes pre-loaded with a checklist that covers a wide array of issues that school districts may wish to assess for each of their schools. The checklist is organized by physical areas of the school to be assessed, the issue-specific topics and sub-topics for each area of the school, and specific assessment actions that represent the positive conditions that an assessor would look for in each area.
School districts can choose the frequency with which they will conduct assessments, though EPA recommends that an assessment be conducted at each school at least annually. EPA has made available two webcasts (February 15 and March 2) to help acquaint states, school systems, and others with the capabilities and features of HealthySEAT. To sign up for one of the free webcasts, as well as to obtain information on how to get started on the HealthySEAT, please visit www.epa.gov/schools.
For additional information, please visit:
U.S. EPA
Indoor Environments Divison (6609J)
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
Phone: (202) 343-9315
Fax: (202) 343-2393
Source: "Healthy Seat," Fact Sheet, EPA.