Something in the Air



Jessica Trahan would rather be hanging out with her friends at North Country Union High School than sitting on her living room couch plodding through math problems. But the 14-year-old freshman says school literally makes her sick.

"At first I thought, It's a new school, I'm nervous. But I'd get constant sinus infections and headaches, and soon I couldn't take it anymore," says Jessica, who has been home-tutored at district expense ever since she fainted in class and was whisked to the hospital with a severe rash a few months ago. A family physician concluded the otherwise healthy teenager was allergic to something in the building, and he advised her not to venture back until the school's air quality improves. She did go back—on a very limited basis—in March after the school made a few atmospheric adjustments.

Even in pristine, fresh-air locales like Jessica's hometown of Newport, Vermont, students may be picking up more than facts and figures when they enter school buildings. Experts say the air quality inside the nation's schools has deteriorated over the past several decades. They attribute the problem mainly to aging, tightly sealed buildings with antiquated ventilation systems and to newer, more potent chemicals being deployed by science students and maintenance crews. "Since the energy crisis in the 1970s, people just tightened up buildings to conserve energy, and because districts saw savings, they never opened schools back up again," says John Guevin, a program analyst with the...

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