ES-2
KEY FINDINGS
Discussions with K-12 EMS pilot participants and stakeholders suggest several specificthemes:
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Motivations for Participating:
Schools most often signed on to the EMS pilots as part of abroader effort to more effectively manage their environmental responsibilities. Many pilotschools had a specific health/environmental incident that served as the impetus for innovativeenvironmental management efforts; other schools had past health complaints that fell short of being serious "incidents." Schools were largely unfamiliar with the technical specifics of EMS before joining the K-12 EMS pilots; thus, they were not motivated to join by pre-existing EMS expertise. However, several of the schools had experience with EPA'ssystems-based Tools for Schools program; hence, familiarity with innovative environmentalmanagement appears to encourage EMS application.
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EMS Champions:
All participating schools have an individual who galvanized the initialefforts toward EMS development and who continues to work to maintain the project'smomentum. This person can be a consultant, a superintendent, or a facilities manager. Whatis critical is that this individual has credibility among the ground-level EMS implementers(i.e., teachers and maintenance staff) and the ability to motivate staff to move beyond theirnormal job descriptions to make the EMS work.
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Consultant Role:
Consultants were involved with each of the EMS pilot efforts. There wasgeneral consensus across stakeholder groups that consultants played an important role inEMS development. However, respondents emphasized the importance of schoolsmaintaining "ownership" of the EMS. Preferably, consultants play a primary role indeveloping the EMS conceptual model and gradually shift to a technical support role duringEMS implementation. The objective of the pilots and other support efforts is to facilitatefuture EMS development without future need for consultant assistance.
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Priority Environmental Issues:
Several of the K-12 EMS participants have implementedformal prioritization efforts, identifying functional areas and using some type of scoring ormatrix approach to highlight the most pressing health, safety, and environmental issues to beaddressed by the EMS. Other participating schools are in the early planning stages of EMS,and have yet to complete a formal prioritization exercise. However, both the formal andinformal prioritization efforts have highlighted several common environmental issues: indoorair quality (e.g., mold); chemical management (e.g., purchasing, handling, storage); solidwaste reduction; energy/water conservation; and integrated pest management. Pilot schoolsoften balance the need to address these high-priority issues with the desire to buildmomentum by focusing on lower priority issues that can be readily addressed (e.g., recyclingprograms).
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EMS Development and Implementation Progress:
Overall, the level of progress shownacross the schools is mixed. EPA and the other organizations managing the pilots (AmericanLung Association of Maine, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, andCity of Newton, MA) have put considerable effort into ensuring that schools make strides
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