Reprinted with permission, from www.healthy-kids.info
On March 18, 1937, in New London, Texas, a gas explosion killed nearly three hundred students, teachers and visitors while in the supposed safe haven of a public school.
An official inquiry into the disaster revealed a litany of false economies, expediency and negligence in the design, installation and maintenance of the heating system, weakness in provisions for ventilation, and totally inadequate venting … in the richest school district in the nation.
Surprisingly, no one was ever held responsible. Instead, the New London Disaster was attributed to “the collective faults of average individuals, ignorant or indifferent to the need for precautionary measures, where they cannot, in their lack of knowledge, visualize a danger or a hazard.”
On March 25, 1937, a nine-year-old survivor addressed the state legislators, urging them to make more protective laws. “Our daddies and mothers as well as the teachers want to know that when we leave our homes in the morning to go to school we will come home safely when our lessons are over.”
Legislation was finally passed to add an odorant to natural gas. Other expert recommendations included “technically trained administrators for modern school systems,” “more rigid inspections and more widespread public education…,” and “a comprehensive, rational safety code.”
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Today, 66 years later, we are still waiting to see schools follow those recommendations. Millions of children go to schools, old and new, that have inadequate ventilation systems and extensive safety code violations. These children are victims of the same false economies and jurisdictional evasions that failed to make safety a priority and that led to the loss of so many young lives in New London, Texas.
[Every few years, however, we hear of parents, teachers and school nurses who organize to clean up their moldy school, despite the opposition of school officials.
[Paul Ruther's news story below illustrates the nature and magnitude of those obstacles, and the incredible persistence it took for parents and teachers to accomplish reforms. -Ed.]
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