Environmental, Health, and Education Agencies

State and tribal environmental, health, education, and emergency planning agencies and local governments are proactively addressing chemical mismanagement in K-12 schools.

Communities look to these agencies for guidance and assistance. Help schools protect the health and safety of students and staff from chemical dangers by:

Providing technical assistance to schools in conducting chemical inventories and cleanouts;
Allowing schools to dispose of some of their chemicals in household hazardous waste collections, if feasible; and
Assisting schools with funding chemical management programs.

Examples of funding sources may include:

Grants. Please visit www.grants.gov to search for available federal grant opportunities;
In-house services (for prevention practices, such as training);
Solid waste tipping fees;
A tax on solid waste disposal;
Schools or school districts (many states require individual schools or school districts to provide partial funding for a chemical cleanout program); and
A Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP). A SEP is an environmentally beneficial project that a defendant or respondent agrees to undertake in the settlement of a civil or administrative enforcement action, but which the defendant is not otherwise legally required to perform.

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If you are planning to develop a community or statewide schools chemical cleanout and prevention program, following these recommendations can help you build a successful program. These recommendations are based on an analysis of pilots funded by EPA and existing programs:

Program Development

Conduct scoping and needs assessment exercise

Assess how chemicals are managed in your community's schools. Evaluate each school's current chemical accumulations, and storage, use, and disposal practices. Determine the number of schools likely to participate.
Perform an initial assessment of interest levels and potential partners' capacities.

Gain management support for SC3 goals

Gain high-level support from school district officials and community leaders. This support can help mitigate resistance to change and raise the level of priority for SC3 activities.

Set performance goals and develop measures

All programs need a way to measure accomplishments and improvements and identify program deficiencies and corrective measures. Metrics can also be a useful tool for schools in budgeting; meeting larger school or community environmental goals; support for funding decisions; and designing effective prevention practices. SC3 programs should set performance goals or targets, and develop performance measures for which data can be efficiently and cost-effectively collected.
SC3 programs should set performance goals or targets, and develop performance measures for which data can be efficiently and cost-effectively collected. Developing and incorporating performance measures will serve as a tool to show the school's and program's accomplishments and improvements. For example, a program can measure the amount of chemicals removed; the number of teachers and staff trained; school populations protected or serviced; and the number of schools making commitments to reduce their chemical waste or other "beyond compliance" activities.

Involve the local community stakeholders and form partnerships

Creating an SC3 program requires an array of perspectives and expertise that may be difficult to achieve within one agency or entity. Extending beyond the school system, local community partners may potentially include fire departments, emergency services, local businesses, colleges and universities, municipal solid waste districts, and others. Having the appropriate mix of partners who can offer technical expertise and financial resources throughout the SC3 program life cycle can help create a robust program that offers a variety of benefits to schools.

Develop strategies to mitigate resistance and reach out to the "hard to reach areas"

Some schools may resist participating in an SC3 program for a variety of reasons. It is important to develop a strategy to reach out to these schools to offer assistance with chemical management activities, illustrating the program benefits and incentives, as well as outlining necessary school resources and commitments up front.

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Outreach

Develop a clear and comprehensive program message

The program message sets the tone for the program and reflects the program's goals. A good message is useful when recruiting schools and other partners to participate in the program.

Identify and leverage existing outreach and communications mechanisms

Coordinate your program's outreach and communication events with existing conferences and meetings, such as: teacher in-service days, staff meetings, industry conferences, etc. Coordinating your outreach and presentations with existing training and events ensures a captive audience, leverages limited financial resources, and eases scheduling difficulties.

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Prevention

Provide technical assistance throughout the all the stages of a chemical management program

Schools should not tackle chemical management problems on their own. They need to have personal technical assistance or access to informative technical resources. Providing schools with assistance will ensure that they can find answers to their questions and receive guidance on their chemical management program.

Develop training protocol for teachers and school personnel

Effective training in chemical management is a critical factor in preventing future chemical accumulations and mismanagement issues. It is important to provide practical information on responsible chemical management, tailor it to the audience. Providing training not only on conducting an inventory, cleanout, and instituting management practices, but also on "greener" purchasing and changes in curriculum to use fewer and safer chemicals is essential.

Incorporate chemical management into curriculum, business practices, and budget development

To prevent the need for future cleanouts, it is essential that responsible chemical management and pollution prevention practices be incorporated into the way schools do business. Prevention practices include:
- Establishing and implementing policies and regulations at the school or school district level to manage chemical use, storage, disposal, and purchasing. Creating policies that institutionalize a chemical management regime will help ensure that responsible management, environmentally friendly purchasing, and other practices remain even if schools experience teacher and staff turnover.
- Purchase less hazardous, smaller quantities, and more environmentally friendly chemicals at the school or school district level.
- Centralize purchasing. Centralized purchasing allows for better tracking of the types and amounts of chemicals being purchased and brought into the school.
- Contract with vendors who provide Chemical and Resource Management Services (CRMS).
- Incorporate environmentally friendly activities into the curriculum. Create lessons and activities that do not require toxic or large amounts of hazardous chemicals. For example, using small scale or microscale chemistry techniques and lessons in sciences classes can reduce the amount of chemicals needed and create less waste.
- Institute appropriate, regularly scheduled training for teachers and school personnel. Give people the tools and resources to responsibly manage the chemicals they use in the classroom and school facilities. Ensure that new faculty and staff are aware of responsible chemical management practices.
- Work with institutions of higher education to institute chemical management training for pre-service teachers.

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Environmental, Health, and Education Agencies

Program Development

Outreach

Prevention

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