With support from a broad-based coalition led by Healthy Schools Network, New York State has adopted environmental reform policies embodied in a five-point, child-centered set of "Guiding Principles for School Environmental Quality". Healthy Schools Network has since worked to secure new laws, funding, and regulations to promote healthier school environments, including the measures for occupant health in schools under renovation, notice of pesticide use, bans on arsenic and elemental mercury, and an executive order on "green" cleaning products that has been extended to all public and private schools state-wide.

Our Campaigns

• Healthy & High Performance Schools
  
• Green Cleaning
  
• Children's Environmental Health Partnership
  
• Women & Children First
  
• NYS Legislative Program
• New York City Work

Queens Press Conference
February 2008

New York City Councilman James F. Gennaro, New York State Assemblyman Rory Lancman and Stephen Boese, New York Director of Healthy Schools Network gathered at a school construction site in Jamaica, Queens to call on the NYS Legislature to approve Legislation to protect children from schools built on hazardous sites and to allow environmental and community reviews for leased NYC school properties.

Greening Schools for Healthy Children
Forum
October 2007

North Babylon, NY: New York State Assemblyman Robert Sweeney accepts a 2007 Healthy Schools Hero Award from Assemblyman Englebright, a former honoree, and from two HSN Board Members Jeff Jones and Neal Tepel.

Schenectady Energy Fair
October 2007

NYSERDA President Paul Tonko speaks with
Steve Boese at the Healthy Schools Network
booth located at the Schenectady Energy Fair.

Unwanted Exposure Report Press Conference
April 2007

The Children's Environmental Health Partnership/NYS,
co-led by HSN and the Learning Disabilities Association of NYS, released a status report on children and the environment.

Children's Environmental Health Leadership Symposium
October 2006
Albany, NY: (from left to right) Jeff Jones, HSN Board Member; Kathy Curtis, Clean NY; Assemblyman Steve Englebright; Claire Barnett, Executive Director, HSN; Heather Loukmas, Executive Director, Learning Disabilities Association of NYS; Stephen Boese, NYS Director, HSN; Ramona Trovato, HSN Board Member.

Healthy Schools Day in New York
April 2006
Albany, NY: (left to right) Jeff Jones, HSN Board Member; Assemblyman Steve Englebright; Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; Claire Barnett, Executive Director, HSN; Stephen Boese, New York State Director, HSN; John Green, New York State United Teachers.

Children's Environmental Health Lobby Day
March 2006
Albany, NY: (left to right) Philip Landrigan, MD, Director of the Center for Children's Health and Environment at Mount Sinai Medical Center; Kathy Curtis, Clean NY; Heather Loukmas, Learning Disabilities Association of NYS; Senator Jim Alesi; Stephen Boese, Healthy Schools Network.

OUR CAMPAIGNS

Healthy & High Performance School Design

Our goal is to help shape initiatives that will transform the built environment to include health and learning benefits for all children. Healthy and High Performance schools improve children’s health, energy efficiency, and teacher and school staff job satisfaction, enhance student performance, and provide a healthier environment for building occupants.

In 2006, NYSERDA (The NYS Energy Research and Development Authority) and the NYS Education Department released NY-CHPS, comprehensive healthy and high performance school design guidelines for NYS schools. Healthy Schools Network worked to bring the NYS Education Department and NYSERDA together to create these guidelines and then served as an advisor to the project during its development.

Green Cleaning

Cleaning products that are used at school can contain harmful and toxic chemicals that can affect the health of children, as well as janitorial staff and school employees. Children are more vulnerable to these toxins because they eat, breathe, and drink more per pound of body weight than adults and when exposed to these harmful chemicals, children can have long term health problems.

In 2005, HSN helped secure the country's first executive order and the first state-wide law requiring the use of "green" cleaning and maintenance products in state agencies and all public and private schools. This law went into effect for all New York State schools in September 2006.

For more information about Green Cleaning, visit our Green Cleaning and Maintenance Guide: Practices and Products for School guide.

Children's Environmental Health Partnership of New York

The Children's Environmental Health Partnership of NY is an innovative partnership between Healthy Schools Network, Learning Disabilities Association of NYS, and over 20 task force members. The Partnership was created with the purpose of advocating for protective statewide initiatives and holding New York State government accountable to implement and enforce policies that will improve children's environmental health through the elimination and reduction of toxic exposures and through the provision of environmental public health services dedicated to children. The Partnership's mission is to build healthier communities, schools, and children and to reduce childhood illness and disability due to environmental health hazards.

Children's Environmental Health Partnership of New York State Newsletters

2007 Children's Environmental Health Partnership Report

Unwanted Exposure: Preventing Environmental Threats to the Health of New York State's Children presents a comprehensive review of the major identified threats to children's health from environmental causes and explores New York State's current policy framework for protecting children from these hazards. Unwanted Exposure also summarizes the Children's Environmental Health Partnership Symposium, a leadership summit that took place at the Capitol in Albany, on Oct. 12, 2006. The Symposium, a collaborative effort of the Learning Disabilities Association and the Healthy Schools Network, brought together leading state and national children's environmental health policy experts to address the issue of environmental contaminants, their effects on children's health and to help facilitate the work of the Children's Environmental Health and Safety Advisory Council, chapter 178 of the 2006 laws of New York.

Women & Children First

Working with Clean NY and the Learning Disabilities Association of NYS, Healthy Schools Network focuses on the health impacts of environmental hazards and pollution on women and children, two uniquely vulnerable populations. We focus on women because every child develops in a woman's body and children because their developing bodies are more vulnerable to the adverse affects of environmental hazards.

With Clean NY, we focused on alerting the public and key NYS policy makers to the health hazards posed by Toxic Flame Retardants. Visit our "Guide to PBDE: Toxic Flame Retardant, What Women, Children and School Personnel Need to Know" to learn more.

Healthy Schools Network 2008 New York Legislative Program

We ask NYS elected officials to support:

• Healthy and High Performance School Design Standards for all school construction;
  
• School Siting Requirements;
  
• Parent Right-to-Know;
  
• Minor Maintenance and Repair Funds; and
  
• Legislation that: promotes indoor air quality at school; provides for annual water testing at school taps; and protects students from exposure to pesticides at school.

New York City Work

Announcements: