Indoor Air Quality

Level Three: Creating or Improving Policies

To receive the Level Three award for Indoor Air Quality, your Green Flag Team must:
(If you have an existing IAQ program in your school, skip to #4)

1. Find out what needs to be done:

• Talk with the Green Flag Program Coordinator to review your level two survey and discuss how you can promote Indoor Air Quality improvements.
  
  
• Research Indoor Air Quality policies already in place in some schools.
  
  
• Review the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies Tools for Schools Program.

2. Propose Tools for Schools to decision makers

• Based on your research, make written recommendations to school decision-makers and submit this with a cover letter explaining your program.
• Prepare to make a presentation to decision makers. Research Tools for Schools, and its benefits. Make notes to help you explain the problems and alternatives to Indoor Air Quality problems. (http://www.epa.gov/iaq/schools/tools4s2.html).
• Make a presentation to decision makers, such as the principal, school board, or PTA, and bring along the Green Flag team to show that people are interested. At the end of the meeting, present any written materials about IAQ, Tools for Schools, and your ideas to improve school IAQ, and of course, thank the decision-makers for meeting with you.
• Continue to work with the Green Flag coordinator to find ways to let your community know about your school’s indoor air quality problems, and get people to join you in promoting Tools for Schools.

3. Implementing Tools for Schools at your school and documenting the changes:

• Your school must have completed enough of the Tools for Schools program to be eligible for that program’s IAQ TfS Award Program whose criteria are described at http://www.epa.gov/iaq/schools/leadershipaward.html
• Submit TfS IAQ Leadership Award application.
• You must also perform one Classroom Activities to support the program.

OR:

4. What if your school is already entered in the EPA Tools for Schools program?

• If your school already participates in Tools for Schools Program or conducts a school audit or survey addressing IAQ issues, you may submit copies of IAQ checklists or other school surveys or audits for review by the Green Flag Program Coordinator and/or IAQ mentor.
• The audit must have been completed within one year of your school joining the Green Flag Program and be signed by a school administrator.
• You must also complete one Classroom Activity, or create one of your own.

5. Rewards for Level Three:

• The patch for Indoor Air Quality to add to your Flag.
• A certificate of acheivement from the CHEJ Green Flag School Program.
• A description of the activities of your Green Flag team will be posted on the Green Flag website.

Track Your Progress

The "Track Your Progress" charts are a new feature of the Green Flag School Program. The progress sheet is an online tracking page which lists each step in the program, and includes a space for the user to enter their activity for that step. They may do this online, hit enter once they have finished, and it is then sent to us to keep in your file. If you prefer, you may print out the progress sheets, fill them in by hand, and send them in to the Green Flag School Coordinator. We hope that this will help you document your teams progress and see how many steps you have to go until you win your Green Flag Patch. Check it out by clicking on Track Your Progress!

 Indoor Air Quality Resources

The Green Flag Program is a project of the national Child Proofing Our Communities Campaign,

 coordinated by the Center for Health Environment and Justice.