Part-time, on behalf of the Barnacle (read: baby), but school nonetheless, conjuring up visions of four—count ‘em, FOUR—whole hours of uninterrupted time, with which to do as I please (read: work).
And then the boom dropped, in the form of paperwork. Endless paperwork. Entire forest’s worth of paperwork. Paperwork that takes hours upon hours to complete, distributed in duplicate, in case you missed it the first time.
In the throes of major recession, apparently our bankrupt school system still has the wherewithal to publish a 100-page booklet—in both Spanish and English—which, as far as I can tell, is basically the bible of the Los Angeles School District.
I flipped through it before recycling, grumbling about the waste of paper, until I stopped short at three pages of something called the “Approved Pesticide Production List.” Apparently, the LAUSD is now required by law to disclose the pesticides that they’re spraying on the properties where our children are playing (making me wonder how many years they’ve been spraying without notice).
A form asked parents to indicate if we wanted to be notified when spraying was to occur. Well, duh.
This is not a new subject for me. I’ve been reading a lot about pesticides, most recently about those in drinking water, which have been linked to aggression in children. As cited in a recent study, "Some…children were observed hitting their siblings when they passed by, and they became easily upset or angry with a minor corrective comment by a parent. These aggressive behaviors were not noted in the [pesticide-free]…[children]."
A recent National Academy of Sciences study suggests that “more than 28% of developmental disabilities in children may be caused by environmental factors.”
Ouch.
With that in mind, let me give you the short list of what they’re spraying at my kids’ school: Hydroprene, Linalool, Piperonyl Butoxide, Pyriproxfen and Orthoboric Acid.
That’s just the first page.
All of these pesticides are indicated as “dangerous” by the school district. Some of them are on the National Resources Defense Council’s list of governmentally sanctioned “pesticide poisons,” of which NRDC scientist Miriam Rotkin-Ellman said, “This is really an example of how public human health is not being protected in our current system of pesticide review.”
Yet they’re approved to spray on a regular basis around children, who absorb—pound for pound—many times more pesticides than adults.
According to HealthyChild.org, which just launched an “Eat Healthy” campaign that clues in parents to the dangers of pesticides in food, we now face a “historically unprecedented rise in chronic diseases and illnesses such as cancer, autism, asthma, allergies, birth defects, ADHD, obesity, diabetes, and learning and developmental disabilities. Credible scientific evidence increasingly points to environmental hazards and household chemicals as causing and contributing to many of these diseases.”
Kind of makes you want to take your kid out of a pesticide-laden school, doesn’t it?
Home schooling isn’t an option: Apparently I’m really not smarter than a fifth grader, especially in four hours a day.
So my husband and I will sign the notification forms, keep our kids home from school the next time they spray, and hope for the best.
What else can we do? Any suggestions?
