Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting. In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance. - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Comments
Elem Parent
We live in a city!
Having freeway access is a perk, IMO.
Exposure to vehicle emissions can reduce lung function in children and increase the risk of asthma. Children are especially vulnerable because their lungs are still forming. The health effects can be permanent, and go unnoticed, since symptoms of reduced lung function may not appear until a 10-20% reduction in lung function has occurred (ARB, 2007). Studies from California resulted in a school citing rule of no closer than 500 ft. from a freeway. John Marshall is 150-200 ft. from the freeway. JSIS, TOPS, and Maple are also close to the freeway, but as reiterated previously, “just because an existing school falls within that distance, doesn't mean it's wise to put additional school children in similar locations.“ JM is especially bad since it sits below the freeway with no physical or natural barrier. Simply keeping the windows closed on the building will not protect students and staff from exposure to the ultrafine particulates. One researcher equated living or working in such close proximity to the freeway to taking up smoking.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/health/healthup/march07.pdf
http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/health/healthup/dec04.pdf
http://www.scpcs.ucla.edu/news/Freeway.pdf
Distance from the freeway is a significant factor, and there is a big difference between being 150 ft. from the source vs 500 ft. from the source. It's not a linear relationship. I-5 has a significantly higher traffic volume than Aurora. More vehicles = higher concentrations.
perk?