A 2,100-acre data center is being built in Frederick County, Md., with one piece of its property sketched out to be about 500 feet from a public elementary school. As data centers become more ubiquitous around the country, there are growing questions and concerns about possible health effects on communities, and children in particular.
The Quantum Frederick Data Center Campus has been in the works since 2022. Initially, the data center was meant to be about 2,000 feet from Carroll Manor Elementary School, and the reaction from community members was relatively muted, said Dean Rose, president of Frederick County’s school board. Then in December 2025, the county voted to expand the acreage that allowed data centers, bringing the campus much closer to the school.
“That got the community really engaged,” Rose said.
This is one example of an increasingly common debate. According to 2026 Pew Research data, there are more than 3,000 operational data centers in the United States, and more than 1,500 new ones at various stages of development. Other research from last year by Business Insider and the National Center for Education Statistics shows that around 1,878 public schools are within a mile of at least one data center or future facility.
At least 15 states are considering data center moratoriums, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But so far, only New York has passed a one-year ban.
Proponents of a ban point to the potential health effects data centers can have on people who live or work near them. But since data centers are a relatively new phenomenon, a proper health study is still in the works, said Alison L. Steele, executive director of the Environmental Health Project.
“To effectively speak about the health concerns of data centers, we can take the components of the facilities [into consideration],” she said. Data centers have been around since 2006, but in recent years, with the advancement of artificial intelligence, these facilities have required more space and energy. With these hyperscale data centers, there are still many unknowns as far as long-term effects on health. “We know that there are health impacts to light pollution. We know that there are health impacts associated with noise pollution.”
The potential health effects of data centers
Dr. Debra Hendrickson, a physician and clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, said there are three major concerns when it comes to data centers—carbon emissions, water usage, and exposure to toxic chemicals, known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
Powering data centers requires a huge amount of electricity, and the burning of fossil fuels results in carbon emissions and other toxic pollutants.
Children who live in these areas, because their organs are still forming, can grow smaller, stiffer lungs, Hendrickson told Education Week. Additionally, air pollution has been shown to affect brain development in utero and onward into childhood.
“If you test children from a high air pollution neighborhood versus a low air pollution area, then you see measurable cognitive and behavioral differences,” said Hendrickson.
Other concerns include light and noise pollution. Some have described data centers as a dishwasher running in the background because of its constant low-humming noise.
Many data centers also have bright lights operating all day and night. This type of light pollution can disrupt the circadian rhythm, which is the body’s internal clock, increasing stress and leading to poor sleep, said Steele.
“If you’re [in] school and people are trying to concentrate, and they haven’t slept, they’re going to have stress, [which is] tied to a whole host of different impacts on the body and brain,” said Steele.
These are all concerns the community members in Frederick County have expressed, said Rose. As a result, an environmental air monitoring system has been installed in Carroll Manor Elementary School ahead of the new school year. The school board also asked the county for a sound and noise monitoring system.
District leaders are also concerned about spiking electricity bills.
“We’re a pretty large school system; we’ve got 48,000 students, 68 buildings that we must heat and cool and light every single day,” Rose said, adding that the data center is “a big inflationary item” for the district, especially as school budgets get tighter.
Though, how much prices would increase is still to be determined. It is Rose’s understanding that part of the data center project—a section owned by Amazon—is coming online later this year, although there is no known date.
Education Week reached out to the data center developer responsible for the facility being built in Frederick, Catellus, for comment and has not received a response.
What to expect in the new school year for Frederick County
Most recently, the county announced a potential agreement of “$110 million in developer-funded benefits” for Adamstown and Frederick County residents and facilities, including $30 million for renovations to Carroll Manor Elementary School. Additionally, Catellus agreed to reduce the square footage of data center development by nearly 20%.
While the reduction wouldn’t be in the area closest to the school, the agreement does include designating that area as parkland property so that it wouldn’t house a data center, said Rose. He also told Education Week that the money would go a long way to help air and noise quality concerns.
“There’s so much [animosity] in the community right now,” said Rose. “It’s a very sensitive topic ... so whether this can get through the planning commission and through the current county council [is a question].”
