1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
The series is called "Toxic Schools" and was reported and written by Denise-Marie Balona.
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
The series ran online and in print Oct. 17-19, 2010.
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Central Florida schools are continually battling mold — some of it the most potentially dangerous, toxin-producing types. Over the past three years, local school districts have received thousands of complaints from teachers, students and others about moldy smells, mold-infested walls and furniture and health problems thought to be related to poor indoor air quality. The state has acknowledged and university research shows that such problems are widespread in Florida. Yet there are no state laws to govern how schools should prevent, monitor and fix these problems. A grand jury in South Florida urged legislators almost a decade ago to force schools to make improvements, but nothing has changed. The last time the Florida Legislature considered tougher regulations – in 2004 – it learned that identifying problems would be expensive and would make the state vulnerable to lawsuits. Since then, some schools have made matters worse by shutting off the air-conditioning to save money during weekends and summers in one of the hottest, most humid states in the country. And because maintenance funding has dwindled over the past few years, schools are putting off repairing and replacing roofs and air-conditioning systems — the primary means for controlling the moisture that mold needs to grow and thrive indoors.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
I used a variety of resources during my reporting. I reviewed paper documents -_ for example, school maintenance work orders, court files, independent environmental reports and e-mails from school employees and parents. I reviewed electronic files such as spreadsheets containing complaints about school indoor-air quality. I pored over various state documents available online, including state statutes, the policies of the Florida Department of Health and Florida Department of Education, legislative reports and notes on legislative committee meetings. I also communicated extensively via e-mail with dozens of sources, some of whom shared a variety of research material. I used the Internet extensively in other ways _- for example, to track down experts and to research guidelines adopted by environmental-health agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. I also used online archives to research what other media outlets and nonprofit groups had reported about mold in schools in Florida and around the nation. I had to make numerous public-information requests. I also had to be quite aggressive in following up on them.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
I interviewed dozens of people for this series — former and current teachers, former and current school district administrators, parents, attorneys, university professors, researchers, children_s health advocates, environmental experts and state legislators. I also interviewed public information officers for various state and federal government agencies as well as employee union officials at the local, state and
6. Results (if any).
In the month or so since the series ran, some school districts in Central Florida have begun reassessing their approach to indoor air-quality problems and reviewing their policies. In Lake County, for example, the School Board has directed its facilities department to research the problem and present its findings at a future school board meeting. In Orange County, a school board member said she wants to include indoor air quality in an audit of the district_s construction division. Some school officials predict that newly elected Florida lawmakers will respond to my articles when they convene in April. The one outstanding statewide issue is this: There are no statewide rules governing indoor air quality in Florida_s public schools.
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
We ran a correction on Oct. 19, 2010, because an illustration that accompanied one of the articles misidentified the county where a school was located.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
I have four pieces of advice for a reporter trying to take on this type of project: 1) Depending on the scope of your review, be prepared to spend weeks or months searching through public records for the information you need. It seems that few school districts in Florida keep electronic records about mold and other indoor air-quality problems. Those that are maintained are not always complete. And the paper records they do keep are often not organized in a way that would allow you to quickly separate maintenance work orders for mold removal from work orders for, say, a leaky toilet or a broken window. In Central Florida_s smallest school district, it took me a full week to go through boxes of maintenance work orders for a single school year. There were more than 25,000 work orders, and I had to read every one to track down complaints from teachers, administrators and others about moldy odors, mold growing on ceilings, walls and furniture and health problems believed to be related to poor indoor air-quality. 2) Educate yourself about the various terms that school officials and environmental experts use to refer to mold in reports and other documents. School officials will go out of their way to not use the word "mold." For example,"AMG" is an abbreviation for Assumed Mold Growth. "Indoor amplification" is a phrase used when the level of mold found indoors exceeds mold levels occurring naturally outside — a key indicator of a mold problem inside a school building. 3) When you ask for public records related to national levels and indoor air quality, be aware that you might not get all the records that exist. For some reason, mold growth and complaints related to mold are not always considered "indoor air quality" issues in some Florida school districts. Some of these complaints are filed away as air-conditioning issues or categorized as a roofing, plumbing or even a painting problem. You'll have to be aggressive when it comes to tracking down any photos that exist of mold-impacted classrooms and buildings. 4) Keep in close contact with a variety of environmental experts. I turned to experts outside the state often for help interpreting reports and charts and to make sure I did not exaggerate or oversimplify mold problems. This is a complex issue that researchers are still investigating. Experts are still learning about how mold and indoor air quality impact the human body and affect student performance.