IAQ Schools Asthma CMS Podcast Transcription
Betsy Lipson: Welcome to the Asthma Community Network website Podcast, at asthmacommunitynetwork.org. Our discussion today will feature the relationship between asthma management in schools and indoor air quality. With us today are two representatives from the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District in Charlotte, NC. This is the largest school district in North Carolina with about 134,000 students, 649 buildings, and 1,241 mobile classrooms. We are talking today to Brian Casher, who is the manager of environmental health and safety for the school district, and Beth Burton, an asthma management nurse who leads the school districts’ asthma education program. We’ll start with an overview of their work. Next, we’ll dive into how evaluation is a key component of demonstrating program success. Finally, we’ll discuss how both of these programs are sustained over time. Welcome Brian and Beth. 
Betsy: I understand that Charlotte Mecklenburg didn’t always have a manager of environmental health and safety and an asthma education program. Can you explain to our listeners how these initiatives got started? 
Brian Casher: Back in 1999 there was a reorganization of the auxiliary services or building services side of the district. And, the district created a position called the Safety Officer. And, over time, the Safety Officer got more and more involved in the areas of indoor air quality. Charlotte Mecklenburg schools, ultimately in 2005 created the Environmental Health and Safety Office, and pretty much formalized indoor air Quality programming for the district. 
Betsy: And Beth, how did the Asthma Education Program get started?
Beth Burton: Well, ironically enough, back in 1999, the same year with Brian’s program, there was a study out that demonstrated that 16 percent of our middle school students had either identified asthma symptoms, or were diagnosed with asthma. So, we knew that there was a big issue that needed to be addressed in the school system. We applied for funding through a cooperative agreement through CDC and were funded in 2003. We are now funded through 2013 to address asthma. And our program is a collaborative partnership between the Mecklenburg County Health Department School Health and Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. 
Betsy: The way you both described the programs, they sound independent. Is there a partnership between them?
Brian: There is a partnership. The two programs are independent in that they operate in different divisions of the school district; however, there is clearly a partnership. The school nursing program is a great resource for environmental health and safety in terms of early diagnostics. If there is an issue happening out there in a building, the nurses often have been the folks to kind of tip our office off so we can get out there and do an early intervention and resolve something before it turns into an adverse condition for the school. 
Beth: We put a process in place of how you report some of these indoor air quality issues. In the past there has been some question of who do you call, how do we reach the departments, and that was one area that we really worked closely on to develop a process so that nurses understood. Oftentimes, they are the first ones who are called.
Betsy: I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the data collection that you all do, and what you have found to be the most important for reporting in order to ensure that you are a sustained initiative and are integrated into the school district’s efforts. 
Beth: One of the areas that we’ve looked at is, we collect a pretty broad area of data, including certainly the number of overall students with asthma. Sharing our data helps to demonstrate what we’re doing. Each year for example, we go to the Board of County Commissioners and share our asthma statistics with the community. And then again on a building level, sharing that with the principals, sharing that with the school board, letting them understand what the burden of asthma is in the schools. Our school nurses will also carry that message as well. So, when that information is disseminated properly, then you can get more buy in.
Brian: I think data is critical. We go through about 90,000 work orders a year here at building services. And, I can tell you that when we introduced Tools for Schools, Indoor Air Quality Fundamentals into our environmental management and our summer energy management program actually, back in 2007, we reduced the number of mold calls that our maintenance teams had to respond to by 54 percent. And, that is a very significant number, so we could show that through integrating good indoor air quality fundamentals into the maintenance program we could actually save money; that Indoor Air Quality programming, targeting potential asthma trigger sources, can help achieve better academic performance, better attendance, and depending on how you work the numbers, can actually save school districts money.
Betsy: You both sound very proud of all of your accomplishments, of both the program and the initiative’s accomplishments. What are the accomplishments that your programs have achieved in the school district? 
Beth: We are proud of putting policies in place that are going to sustain the asthma programs once the initiative is gone and is no longer here. There is a wellness policy in CMS that supports staff training annually that all building level staff will be trained with asthma education.
Brian: I would say, one of the accomplishments that I like to share with folks is our ability to work in a multi-disciplinary environment – to really reach across the table, to reach across the district to involve parents, to involve teachers, to involve the school nursing staff, to involve local corporations. I can’t tell you how good it feels at the end of the day after doing an intervention to have a teacher come up and say, “You know, I’m not sure exactly what you all did, but I haven’t been sick and our absences have gone down, and we are really making progress in the classroom.” You know, to hear those kinds of statements and to see it in people’s eyes how sincere they are that we have made a difference, I can’t think of a better professional reward out there. 
Beth: Absolutely, we know that student health and achievement really go hand in hand. Brian, I can’t agree more. 
Brian: Our Board of Education, back in July of 2008, passed a board policy called Environmental Stewardship, and it calls on the district, for everyone in the district to be good, effective stewards of our natural resources. Our superintendent took it a step further and has made environmental stewardship one of the district’s six top goals in our strategic plan 2014. We’ve just rolled out our Environmental Stewardship Guide, which is a 150 page guidebook on environmental stewardship. It has chapters on our Asthma Education Program, Indoor Air Quality School Recycling Programs, and Anti-Idling Programs to help keep the air quality around the schools in good shape. 
Beth: In 2009 our asthma program developed a new asthma action plan, and this is now recognized throughout the Charlotte Mecklenburg community by physicians, healthcare providers, hospitals. And, this has made a big difference. Not only does it include asthma medication, it also includes trigger control. So, looking from an environmental standpoint, helping schools be more aware of what areas trigger students’ asthma attacks. I think overall, we are all learning to communicate better with one another and trying to speak the same language, utilizing resources better, and working together. Really communicating has been the key.
Betsy: I wonder if we can take a minute to offer advice to a program, or a health department at a school on how they could get started in a partnership with the facilities maintenance department. 
Beth: I would say the first step is to dialogue, and to have communications between partners. And, communicate what your project goals are, what can you bring to the table, what are your needs, what are you resources, and then how can you work together to facilitate that? Data collection is really key and is really critical for telling your story and being able to evaluate and demonstrate outcomes from the work that you do. 
Brian: And, I would add, training. If we’re trained to foster a partnership, to tailor that training to a level that has resonance with the maintenance, with the custodial folks. They play such a key role in the school environment.
Betsy: Thank you for joining us today Brian and Beth. I am excited by the work that you do, and I know that it will inspire others to reach out in their school community to help students with asthma. Visit us at asthmacommunitynetwork.org to connect with other asthma champions in your community and nationwide. 



 
8/26/2011