Robina Suwol and her six-year-old son Nicholas had a ritual when dropping him off at school – he would turn around and wave to her as he ran up the steps.
“It tastes terrible!” Nicolas yelled during one drop-off.
When Suwol looked up, she saw a man in a hazard suit spraying herbicides, just 10 minutes before classes started.
Shortly after, Nicholas underwent an asthma attack in the nurse’s office. Suwol took him to the emergency room, where he recovered. He asked her if this would ever happen again.
“I just told him, of course not, you don’t need to worry,” said Suwol. “I didn’t know if I could follow through, but I made that commitment to him.”
This incident 26 years ago, prompted Suwol to start the nonprofit California Safe Schools (CSS), a coalition with a mission to protect children from being exposed to pesticides on school sites.
CSS continues to be a leader in children’s environmental health with awareness programs to reduce and eliminate the use of toxic pesticides, hazardous waste, diesel idling emissions and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – chemicals used in hundreds of products such as food packaging and cookware.
Building Protections for Schoolchildren
Suwol talked to parents, doctors and scientists, and began researching the chemicals in the pesticides used by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). A committee was formed to work on creating a more protective pesticide policy.
CSS spearheaded LAUSD’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Policy, the most stringent pesticide policy in the nation for K-12 public schools.
Sandra Schubert who helped write the policy, described it as “an internationally recognized integrated pest management policy that has kept kids and parents safe for over 25 years.”
IPM was the first to embrace a “Precautionary Principle,” meaning if a product is thought to be potentially harmful to human health and the environment, the district is to make a concerted effort not to use the product – or more simply, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
It also introduced a “Right to Know” policy, ensuring that if any pesticide products were used on a school site, there would have to be advance notice for parents, staff and students at the beginning of the school year.
Finally, it established a 15-member Pest Management Team (PMT) to provide oversight and guidance in policy implementation. The team includes LAUSD district representatives, parents, environmentalists, school staff, community members, a physician and a member of the Public Health Department.
“We wanted to make sure we had the expertise and the knowledge to answer questions, address issues and make sure public health and safety – especially the kids, but [also for] everybody else at LA Unified and visitors – were protected,” said Schubert.
Once created, the team began reviewing the 160 pesticide products used by LAUSD, reducing the scope of products to fewer than 40, and now fewer than 25, said Suwol.
The success of this policy in LA led to the California Healthy Schools Act (HSA) in 2000, which defined requirements for school and child care center staff, pest management professionals and the Department of Pesticide Regulation. CSS also sponsored Assembly Bill (AB) 405, carried by the late Assemblywoman Cindy Montañez, which bans experimental pesticides from California K-12 public schools.
“Now six million children and hundreds of thousands of teachers, school administrators and folks on school sites, don’t have to deal with experimental, conditional and phased-out products,” said Suwol.
Are Bureaucratic Roadblocks Now Threatening Transparency and Oversight?
“Part of the reason [the IPM program has] been successful is because there’s been a collaborative team, there’s been oversight and there’s been transparency,” said Schubert.
In recent years, with staffing changes in LAUSD, Suwol and Schubert fear that there is an effort to undermine the effectiveness of the oversight committee, and in turn the IPM program as a whole.
“It’s really clear that [LAUSD’s] trying to undermine the policy and completely get rid of all oversight,” said Schubert. “My sense … is they do not believe integrated task management is a good thing. They just want to be able to do what they feel is necessary and appropriate without any oversight whatsoever.”
Schubert said there are a few ways they are doing this. One is by refusing to reappoint or appoint certain PMT members – a parent representative nominated in 2022 and a physician nominated in 2023 have still not been approved, leaving vacancies on the oversight team. Another is by not providing information and notices to the team.
In 2022, an audit report was released by the Office of the Inspector General LAUSD, checking if the IPM program was effective and functioning in compliance with HSA and if the team was operating in accordance with state and federal guidelines.
“A policy is only as good as its implementation and its oversight,” said Schubert. “And they’re not implementing the policy correctly. The inspector general made that clear. And now they’re dismantling the oversight.”
The report’s recommendations included improving and formalizing training for IPM participants (school staff, IPM team members and pest technicians) and developing an updated policy and procedures manual.
Suwol said the oversight team has been left out of developing the new manual. LAUSD hired an outside company to re-write the manual, and put together an Ad Hoc Committee to review the manual and new appointments, she added.
“My concern is that it’s [the new manual] not going to be adequate,” said Schubert. “[That] they will undermine the IPM team, or dismantle it in such a way that there’s no oversight and that it’s just handled internally.”
Schubert is the public representative on the Ad Hoc Committee alongside Scott Schmerelson, LAUSD District 3 board member, and Mark Cho, LAUSD deputy director of maintenance and operations.
“I have no idea what I’m doing on the Ad Hoc Committee because they won’t tell me,” said Schubert. “They won’t give me an agenda. They won’t give me any background materials. I’m not getting any briefings from staff.”
The Ad Hoc Committee meeting is scheduled to take place on Aug. 27, and Schubert has still not received the drafted policy and procedures manual – a document that is likely over 100 pages.
“Let’s not weaken public health and protection. Let’s strengthen it,” said Schubert.
This is outrageous and blatant!
LAUSD absolutely is denying Ms. Schubert the necessary materials, containing vital information for a member of the Ad Hoc committee to do their due diligence.
It appears as if LAUSD is deliberately keeping concerned citizens like Ms. Suwol and Ms. Schubert out of the loop regardless of their proven record of protecting the health and wellbeing of children, teachers and staff.
SHAME on you LAUSD
I can’t understand why members of an Ad HOC committee would be kept in the dark about an agenda for a meeting they are expected to attend and in which they are supposed to fully participate. Something is not right here. And why was the oversight committee not involved in putting together the new manual? When something is as important as protecting the health and safety of our children, the teachers and the staff, wouldn’t LAUSD want the input from experienced, long time members of the IPM team? There are a lot of unanswered questions here and I hope that this reporter will follow this story and continue the article when more facts are uncovered. I wonder who the “outside” entity is that has been hired to write the new manual and of course I am curious what they are being paid? So many questions. Inquiring minds want to know. The public should not be kept in the dark. One of the team stated “there should be transparency” but the opposite seems to be true here.
This is a very important story that should not be ignored….there are certain details that have been left out. I proudly served on the IPM team during my years working in environmental enforcement. What is not being said here is that LAUSD’s IPM coordinator has retired and was replaced by someone who is not trained to efficiently coordinate the IPM team in terms of the transparency required to support the IPM Policy that has been in existence for over 25 years. It has served to protect not only LAUSD students but the LAUSD administration as well by establishing clear boundaries as to the pesticides to be used. What is missing here is that LAUSD was caught commingling agricultural pesticides with the traditional pesticides that were being used. Rather than fix the problem and ensure the continuation of the IPM policy, LAUSD decided to retaliate against the IPM committee and use the incident as a ruse to eliminate the IPM function. What is sad is that the LAUSD Board can’t see the forest from the trees and continues to lie about the need for an ad hoc committee to address the IPM policy. They have hired an entity to redo the IPM policy as well as an individual with ties to LAUSD to spearhead the dismantling of the IPM policy…..sad to see what is happening before our eyes…it’s absolutely brazen and totally devoid of transparency, accountability, and responsibility. Wake up LAUSD parents and organize to stop the dismantling of a protective group of citizens and parents who are committed to providing safety and oversight for the students of one of the nation’s largest school district
Shame on LAUSD for their lack of transparency Bravo to the women protecting children and teachers.