Wyoming Healthy Schools

Opportunities & Resources

Grant Opportunity: Wildfire Smoke Preparedness in Community Buildings is a federal grant program to enhance community wildfire smoke preparedness. Eligible applicants include public preschools and local educational agencies. Application deadline 4/15/26. For more information, visit https://www.epa.gov/emergencies-iaq/wildfire-smoke-preparedness-community-buildings-grant-program?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=

Resource: How Mother Bear Taught the Children About Lead, a free online children’s book with activities and a teachers guide from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/kids/activities/stories/mother-bear

Diving Deeper: When good intentions fail, a true story

This is the true story of a school district in Wyoming. Over the years, the district’s facilities department worked hard to make its schools healthier places. The district purchased less-toxic, fragrance-free cleaning products. Then they developed protocols stating schools should only use the district-provided cleaning and disinfecting products, that only specially trained personnel should handle disinfectants, and that students should never disinfect. The district also said no air fresheners and no essential oils in diffusers should be used in its schools. These were great steps to promote student and staff safety and good indoor air quality that would benefit everyone. These were excellent intentions.

The problem
However, all these things still happened in the district’s schools. Instead of using the free-to-them cleaning products that the district provided, some teachers and staff brought in their own scented, more toxic cleaning and disinfecting products. They accepted donations of these products from parents, too. Teachers and staff who were untrained in how to safely use disinfectants used them anyway and left disinfectants out on countertops where students had access to them. Sometimes they told students to use them. Teachers and staff brought in air fresheners and used essential oil diffusers in their offices and classrooms.

Didn’t they care?

It turns out most didn’t even know. They didn’t know about the policies and protocols. They didn’t know much about the products they were bringing in and using (although they thought they did from commercials they’d seen on TV).

Why didn’t they know? The district conveyed the healthy schools policies and protocols to school principals at the beginning of the school year (likely with an overwhelming amount of other important information). Then it was left to the principals to pass it on at the school level. Often the healthy schools information wasn’t passed on, or not in an attention-getting way. Therefore, teachers and school staff—the ones who played the biggest day-to-day role in creating school environments and who had the most direct contact with students—didn’t receive it.

The district’s good intentions lacked clear, consistent communication to those who would implement them at the school level. There was also a lack of education about why the protocols and policies mattered.

How to create a happy ending
This is a sad tale, but it’s not too late for a happy ending. The way to achieve it? For the district to begin ongoing, direct communication with personnel at all levels about healthy schools issues. This should include district-wide trainings of teachers, school staff, administrators, and custodians that are reinforced throughout the school year by reminders in emails, newsletters, and at staff meetings. Better communication between school district departments would help, too.

People are more likely to follow policies and protocols when they know why it’s important. So trainings and communications about healthy schools issues should always share that in a way that’s easy to understand. For example:

• Air fresheners are often made with toxic chemicals and are a source of indoor air pollution. They can trigger migraines, asthma attacks, and other respiratory problems. The same is true of other scented products.
• Essential oils affect people differently and can cause serious allergic reactions. They can also be a source of indoor air pollution.
• Disinfectants are a type of pesticide, contain hazardous chemicals, and are only effective when used as directed (which most untrained people don’t do). By federal law, disinfectants must be kept out of the reach of children.

To gain stronger buy-in, personnel should also be taught how following the policies and protocols benefits them. For example, studies have shown that better indoor air quality can improve thinking, lower student and staff absences, and lead to higher test scores. Sharing all this information with students and their families helps them support healthy schools efforts, as well.

The final link: enforcement
Students and staff shouldn’t be exposed to toxic products because a teacher loves their floral air freshener or because a well-meaning parent donated disinfecting wipes and school personnel didn’t want to risk offending them by saying, “No thank you, we can’t use those here.” Sometimes enforcement requires only a friendly reminder of what should or should not be happening. Other times, it needs a person of authority to say, “Stop doing that,” and follow up to make sure the individual does.

This school district is not alone in the challenge of fulfilling its good intentions. I’m sure many districts across our state struggle in similar ways. However, everyone deserves to learn and work in a healthy environment. Together, we can help achieve that happy ending by supporting and advocating for healthy schools policies, educating others about why they matter, and bringing attention to the work left to do.