Grantee Research Project Results
2017 Progress Report: Balancing Sustainability, Clean Air, Healthy Learning Interiors, and Structural Safety when Designing and Building Schools
EPA Grant Number: R835634Title: Balancing Sustainability, Clean Air, Healthy Learning Interiors, and Structural Safety when Designing and Building Schools
Investigators: Holliday, Lisa M. , Lynch, Robert A. , Johnson, David L , Floyd, Evan , Wachter, Hans-Peter , Wang, Jun , Keesee, Marguerite , Magzamen, Sheryl
Current Investigators: Holliday, Lisa M. , Lynch, Robert A. , Magzamen, Sheryl , Keesee, Marguerite , Wachter, Hans-Peter , Floyd, Evan , Wang, Jun , Johnson, David L
Institution: University of Oklahoma , Colorado State University , University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: November 1, 2014 through October 31, 2018 (Extended to October 31, 2019)
Project Period Covered by this Report: November 1, 2016 through October 31,2017
Project Amount: $984,175
RFA: Healthy Schools: Environmental Factors, Children’s Health and Performance, and Sustainable Building Practices (2013) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Children's Health , Human Health
Objective:
The project objective is to determine quantitatively how each building feature relates to student and teacher performance and how each feature is inter-related.
Progress Summary:
Progress Summary/Accomplishments – Year 3:
Overall, the Oklahoma Healthy Schools project has completed the majority of its Year 1, 2 and 3 objectives. Major accomplishments include:
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The Healthy Schools Project has had several changes in Leadership but has stayed on course through the changes. Dr. Lynch and Professor Wachter have both left the University and Dr. Keesee will retire at the end of the year.
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The development of a partnership with the Oklahoma City and Edmond Public School districts as participants in this project representing approximately 125 schools.
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OU IRB approval for all project activities has been received with the most recent submission with the 3rd year continuation report submitted. With all enrollment activities completed, we during this review period that the IRB remain active but closed to enrollments. Dr. Keesee has shredded all hard copies of personally identifying information including surveys, interviews, and informed consents. All survey samples files and gift card tracking files were destroyed and requisite gift card tracking records turned over to OU financial services and to Dr. Holliday for safe keeping for the required length of time established by the University and federal government.
- Direct work with the Community Advisory Board (CAB) concluded with the final meeting held in July 2017. We will continue to obtain feedback from board members through email correspondence. CAB meetings for 2017 included -- 1/24/2017, 2/28/2017, 4/25/2017, 5/23/2017 and 7/25/2017. The March meeting was not held due to tornadic weather conditions. During the 2017 project year, SFB, the consulting architectural firm, conducted brainstorming sessions with the CAB to determine what the final project tool would be. The CAB was given only the guidelines that the tool was to be an evidence-based product that aided school decision makers in determining what building features were key to student success regarding new builds and building renovations. The June meeting was not held so that SFB and research staff could synthesize the information gained from the brain storming phase into a proposal for the tool to present to the CAB in July. The rest of the year will be spent operationalizing the CAB ideas into an online Building Feature WIKI. Although, the CAB will not formally meet, the research group will elicit feedback from members when the alpha version on the WIKI goes online.
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The CAB wanted an on-line interactive app style place to obtain information about school building design and other information related to school buildings. This led the team to think about a data base, however a database would have to be downloaded on each user’s computer and the team felt this would limit use. Then it was decided that a WIKI would be a better place to store and access the information. The Wiki is currently being developed and the information to be included is being organized.
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Key informant interviews have been transcribed and coded. Researchers are now in the process of synthesizing these findings into a manuscript. Throughout the year, findings from these interviews have been incorporated in tool development, presentations and project articles.
- The building assessment survey by parents and school staff has been completed. Unfortunately, the parent and teacher response rate was extremely low with an estimated response rate of 6% (completed surveys 578) for parents and 3.3% (completed surveys 185) for school staff. In order to increase the parent response rate, researchers, conducted follow-up telephone calls and hard copy mail-outs. se efforts were not very productive as the contact information (mailing address and phone numbers) for the largest school district was very problematic with bad mailing address and phone numbers. Both districts elected to send email blasts to teachers which prevented researchers from conducting any follow-up activities to increase the response rate for teachers. school staff response rate is estimated using the total number of staff reported in the district’s annual reports excluding staff not assigned to a school. Parent and teacher responses regarding the importance of each building feature to student performance has been analyzed and ranked. Results for rankings from both surveys can be found online at: http://okchs.csa.ou.edu/results.html
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After completing physical assessments on open schools in the OKC and Edmond school districts, school profiles were developed for each school that includes all of the physical assessment and student outcome data. There are files for individual schools by district and results can serve as a bench mark for participating schools when using the online Wiki for building improvements or design. Profiles for each school can be assessed at: http://okchs.csa.ou.edu/oklahoma-city.html or http://okchs.csa.ou.edu/edmond.html . In addition to data analysis results and school profiles the project webpage (http://okchs.csa.ou.edu) has both English and Spanish pages and provides
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A statement about the project
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Listing of research staff
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Project contacts
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Copies of the parent and school personnel building surveys
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CAB members past and present
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CAB meeting minutes
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CAB meeting schedule
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Presentations
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Publications.
- All building feature data has been collected and processed. Due privacy concerns and academic testing schedules, individual and classroom level performance data and the ability to randomly select classrooms was not available to researchers. Currently, investigators are in the process of analyzing data that was from the physical building assessments from two to five of the academic spaces in each school. Classrooms and auxiliary spaces assessed were those principals or school personnel made available to researchers. Due to this bias is a concern although district officials indicate that each school utilizes as standard set up for each space. Although not generalizable to all schools or classrooms, the data are representative of the rooms and assessed and should be viewed as indicative of areas of future study. Preliminary correlational analysis of all the building feature variables with grade level student performance and the overall OSDE performance has been completed although again it must be cautioned that the data to do support generalizations outside the classrooms/rooms assessed. A univariate robust regression analyses of the building features controlling for the effects of the percent of students eligible to receive free and reduced lunches has been conducted. This was done by randomly selecting one STEM based classroom from each school for the sample. The results from these analyses are unstable as the results can vary significantly depending on the classroom that is randomly selected. Researchers have also investigated aggregating the individual classroom results to the school level and running the robust regression on the aggregated variables. Both of these analysis techniques result in a significant loss of data and variance in measures. Due to several complications with the data (mixed units of analysis, non-random selection of classrooms, bounded outcome variable) and the limited number of participating school districts and lack of access to individual or classroom level student outcome information, analysis of the data is complicated and will yield non-generalizable results. In order to address some of the limitations associated by the small sample size and nature of the data, researchers are attempting to create indices or scales to represent the six categories of building features – lighting, acoustics, interior design, thermal comfort, aesthetics and school campus. Further, the research team has elicited the aid of Dr. Amanda Janitz, epidemiologist with the College of Public Health, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center to help with the analysis. The team is also seeking a consultation with a specialist in the area of simulations in order to investigate alternative avenues of data analysis.
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Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) measures were completed on 33 days of sampling in third grade classrooms of 12 elementary schools, with 58 sets of measures taken. Ten of the 12 schools were sampled three times, and 4 of the schools were sampled in all three seasons (cold, mild, warm). An instrument set was placed outdoors on 4 occasions and in a second classroom on 24 occasions. Measures of PM10, PM2.5, NO2, CO, VOCs, and formaldehyde were unremarkable. Temperatures and relative humidity were well controlled for the most part, though temperatures exceeded ASHRAE-recommended levels slightly in some cases. Penetrations of vehicle-related pollutants to classrooms from outdoors occurred only occasionally and were brief and of minimal concentration. Only CO2 concentrations were found to exceed acceptable levels in a number of schools, indicating inadequate fresh air ventilation. Peak CO2 levels ranged from a low of 453 ppm to a high as 4751 ppm, and time weighted average (TWA) levels for the school day ranged from 411 ppm to 2046 ppm. TWA CO2 levels exceeded 1000 ppm in 28 of 58 sampling events, and peak CO2 levels exceeded 1000 ppm in 44 of 58 events. Fresh air ventilation rates were estimated by modeling CO2 concentrations as a function of occupancy (children and adults), average per-person CO2 generation rate (children and adults), space volume, and fresh air ventilation rate using a Transient Mass Balance method. The correspondence between estimated effective fresh air ventilation rates and the observed CO2 levels was good. The types and operating modes of the school HVAC systems were not characterized in this work, but the time-concentration profiles suggested differences in the systems. This was subsequently confirmed in discussions with school district facility support personnel. In summary, IEQ measures conducted in the 12 elementary schools’ classrooms indicated the schools to have generally adequate temperature control, extremely low non-occupant related pollutants, and little to no incursion of outdoor vehicle-related pollutants. However, there was a lack of adequate fresh air ventilation in many cases. Ventilation adequacy varied within the schools and across seasons but with no consistent pattern, perhaps reflecting variations in class size as well as seasonal demands on the HVAC systems and/or HVAC seasonal operating mode. Transient mass balance method effective ventilation estimates that met or exceeded ASHRAE-recommended fresh air ventilation rates for people-related pollutants corresponded well with good CO2 control in the classrooms.
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The teacher and parent health surveys were initially received with much enthusiasm – especially due to the promise of a gift card. Questionnaires were distributed to the parents via the teachers and students according to their knowledge of the language used at home (Spanish or English). A self-addressed stamped envelope was included. Teachers were given a similar health survey, also with a self-addressed stamped envelope. Response rates were disappointing – 9.4% for students and 36.4% for teachers. Given the low-response rate, the survey was only attempted once.
Future Activities:
Year Four Activities:
Key activities for Year 3 include:
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Analysis of key informant interviews completed and results submitted for publication.
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Analysis of building data to identify significant gains or declines in test score data due to school building renovations and/or new builds.
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Continue development of building feature wiki tool for use by planners and administrators.
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Present project wiki and findings in key venues.
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Continue development of publications.
Journal Articles on this Report : 3 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 17 publications | 3 publications in selected types | All 3 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Wachter H-P, Holiday L, Hoehn C, Walter R. Building safe and healthy schools. Educational Facility Planner 2015;48(2&3):47-51. |
R835634 (2015) R835634 (2016) R835634 (2017) |
Exit |
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Wachter H-P, Hoehn C. Building next-generation schools. American Association of School Administrators: School Administrator 2015;72(10). |
R835634 (2016) R835634 (2017) |
not available |
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Wachter H-P, Keesee MS, Holliday L. Evaluating school building user needs. Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture Research 2016;3(10):1718-1728. |
R835634 (2016) R835634 (2017) |
Exit Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
Community Advisory Board, air quality monitoring, key Informant, building features, field building assessment tool, renovations, new builds.Relevant Websites:
OK Healthy Schools Project Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.