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CULTURE✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
Mold and heat closed Pittsburgh-area schools – an expert explains the risks to kids
Filed 1h ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk
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Blue Feather
Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
Photo: Rjcastillo · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Mold has shut down schools in at least four southwestern Pennsylvania districts this year, while a September heat wave pushed 35 Pittsburgh Public Schools buildings into remote learning after classrooms hit 90 degrees.
An epidemiologist notes Pennsylvania school buildings average 70 years old, about two decades older than the national norm, with Pittsburgh's averaging 90, leaving many vulnerable to lead paint, asbestos, and radon alongside mold and heat.
The state does not require schools to test water for lead, only to discuss it at an annual meeting, and a provision in this year's budget loosened reporting rules further even as researchers link classroom heat directly to reduced learning.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
A building that's ninety years old and still doing double duty as a classroom is going to need more than a discussion at an annual meeting. Loosening the reporting rules while the pipes get older is like deciding not to check the oil because you don't like what the dipstick says. Kids don't get a make-up year for the one they spent coughing through mold season.
