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Basic Information

Getting Acquainted with HealthySEAT for the First Time?

HealthySEAT can be overwhelming if you don't know where to start. Some suggestions:


Upgrade Information for Existing Users

HealthySEAT Version 2 is now available!

Contents


Overview

EPA has developed a unique software tool to help school districts evaluate and manage their school facilities for key environmental, safety and health issues. [Note: EPA is using the term “district” to broadly describe any institutional system for managing multiple schools, whether they are public, private, tribal, charter or some variation.] The  Healthy School Environments Assessment Tool (HealthySEATv2) is designed to be customized and used by district-level staff to conduct completely voluntary self-assessments of their school (and other) facilities and to track and manage information on environmental conditions school by school.  In addition to powerful software that can be used by districts to track any facility issues it chooses, EPA has also included critical elements of all of its regulatory and voluntary programs for schools, as well as web links to more detailed information. Districts and others can download HealthySEATv2 at no cost from the EPA web site. HealthySEATv2 is meant to be loaded and used on district computers; once it is downloaded from the EPA web site, HealthySEATv2 is yours to customize and use as you see fit. There are no reporting requirements and no obligation to use the checklist EPA has provided.

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Improve the Health, Safety, and Performance of Students and Staff

There are approximately 120,000 public, private, charter, and tribal schools in the United States, and many of them contain hazards that may pose risks to children and staff. The guidance included in HealthySEATv2 can improve the health of students and staff by ensuring that all potential environmental and safety hazards in schools are being properly managed. Examples of school environmental hazards include chemical releases, pesticide exposures, flaking lead paint, mold and other indoor air quality problems, and damaged asbestos-containing building materials.

HealthySEATv2 will help school districts identify and correct hazards before they result in:

In addition, HealthySEATv2 will help school districts:

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HealthySEATv2 Components

School districts, states, tribes, and others can download HealthySEAT at no charge and obtain future updates from EPA at this web site. HealthySEAT includes:

The HealthySEATv2 software has three primary components:

  1. Customize for District – Allows the district to fully customize the tool for district use, including adding its own name and district logo, facilities, assessors, and contacts for remediation, as well as tailoring the content to district policies, programs and priorities. The district can also tailor the prioritization scheme included with the tool, customize letters and manage security features, among other administrative functions.
  2. School-Specific Assessment Information – Allows the district to enter and store information about every assessment conducted at individual schools, track the status of every recommendation, and generate customized letters and reports to individual schools pre-and post-visits.
  3. Reports/Output Menu – Users can select from a variety of report options that organize and extract information from the database such as Assessment Findings by School, Recommendations by Topic/Subtopic, etc.

While HealthySEATv2 is designed to allow full customization of the content by school districts, the software comes pre-loaded with both a master checklist and example starter checklist that cover a wide array of issues that school districts may wish to assess for each of their schools.

The checklist included in HealthySEATv2 is organized by the physical areas of the school to be assessed, the issue-specific topics and sub-topics for each area of the school, and specific assessment standards that represent the facility conditions that an assessor would look for in each area.

Physical Areas of School Topics
Central Office
Classrooms
Attics, Mezzanines
Halls, Stairwells
Mechanical Rooms
Restrooms
Clinics
Custodial Closets
Grounds
Science Rooms and Laboratories
Playgrounds
Vis., Ind. Arts, Voc. Education Rooms		 Indoor Athletic Facilities
Outdoor Athletic Facilities
Home Economics Rooms
Building Exterior
Computer / CADD Rooms
Roof
Music Rooms
Entrances and Exits
Auditoriums
Break Rooms
Cafeterias
Copy Rooms
Library/Media Center		 Chemical management
Construction and renovation
Energy efficiency
Hazardous materials
Hazardous waste
Health, safety and injury prevention
Indoor air quality
Moisture/mold control
Non-hazardous waste
Outdoor air pollution
Pest control/Integrated Pest Management
Portable/relocatable classrooms
Ultra-violet radiation
Water (drinking-, waste-, storm-, and -efficiency)

In addition to information on EPA programs, HealthySEAT also includes information on health, safety and injury prevention, including:

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Using HealthySEATv2

HealthySEATv2 is intended primarily as a tool for school districts to use to periodically evaluate their school facilities at a macro level to be sure that all of the essential elements of key programs are being properly managed school-by-school. Districts choose the frequency with which they will conduct assessments, though EPA recommends that an assessment be conducted at each school at least annually. Districts may conduct the assessments using district staff, school-based staff, contractors, or a combination, depending on their particular circumstances and available resources.

The HealthySEATv2 software is designed specifically to manage information on multiple buildings. For this reason, the software itself is not intended to be used by individual schools. However, the customized checklist and guidebook developed by the district will be a potentially valuable resource for school-based as well as district staff. 

It is important to note that HealthySEATv2 is not a substitute for the day-to-day vigilance and good practice that is required at every school to effectively manage environmental, health and safety issues in a manner that protects children, staff and the environment at all times.

Many states, tribes, and school districts are already undertaking or encouraging school facility assessments, and EPA has designed HealthySEATv2 so that these states, tribes, and districts can easily incorporate their own checklists into the software. During and after the customization process, a simple toggle switch allows districts to view and use either the district-customized program or EPA-included assessment standards.

EPA strongly encourages states and tribes to work across the appropriate agencies to incorporate their own requirements into HealthySEATv2 to help reduce the duplication of effort required for each district to independently research applicable requirements.

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Acknowledgements

EPA would like to acknowledge several organizations that have provided invaluable assistance in the development of HealthySEAT.

HealthySEAT is adapted from a database tool originally developed by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Office of Environmental Health and Safety, to conduct self-assessment inspections in its approximately 900 school facilities.  EPA has made substantial modifications to the tool in order to make it widely available to the more than 14,000 school districts nationwide. 

The checklist provided with HealthySEATv2 was developed by EPA, and draws from many such resources that have been developed across the country.  A comprehensive draft checklist in development by the Indoor Environments Section of the Ohio Department of Health was particularly helpful in organizing the areas of the school to be assessed.

EPA also received extremely valuable input during the development of HealthySEAT from a number of organizations that field tested or otherwise reviewed the Beta version of the software or provided content included with the tool.

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