Clapper, Patti, Schweizer and Mason

Quick thinking by officials at the Sunny Hill Elementary School in Carpentersville, Illinois may have saved dozens of students from exposure to asbestos, a toxic mineral known to cause cancer and serious illnesses.  Work crews inside the school were updating several classrooms with modern digital SmartBoards when asbestos adhesive was discovered.  In at least three of seven classrooms in question the pre-existing white boards were held in place using adhesives containing asbestos.

It was common practice before 1980 to use asbestos in a wide variety of building materials including adhesives.  Schools and other public buildings built before the asbestos material ban have been found to contain a wide array of such materials.  Normally these materials don’t pose a threat because intact, contained asbestos is not a health risk.  However, if the materials are disturbed or degrade, the asbestos fibers can then become airborne. 

Thankfully, quick thinking by the workmen and decisive action by officials at the school probably saved the students in those classrooms from exposure. 

Immediately after the materials were discovered, the danger was brought to the attention of school officials who quickly evacuated all the children from those classrooms and sealed the rooms off to avoid further contamination.  Asbestos experts called in to assess the air quality within the classrooms found the levels of airborne asbestos to be well within federal guidelines.  Because the levels were so low, these experts postulate that the asbestos did not become a threat until the boards were removed from the walls.

This is good news because even short term exposure to asbestos can cause a wide variety of diseases including lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis.  Sadly, many affected victims don’t know the extent of their injuries until decades later when symptoms manifest.  Mesothelioma victims, for example, can remain symptom-free for up to fifty years or even longer before they realize anything is wrong.  By that time the rare cancer has progressed too far to treat effectively.

Hopefully the quick actions of officials from the Barrington Unit School District 220 have spared the Sunny Hill students from such worries.  The school will install new drywall and paint over the affected areas effectively sealing away any remaining asbestos adhesive and keep the materials from becoming an airborne threat.

The reaction was so swift partly due to the school’s asbestos management plan.  Since 1986 the Enivronmental Protection Agency (EPA) has mandated that all schools have such a plan in place to account for eventualities such as the discovery of asbestos or damage occurring to known asbestos materials.