Philadelphia Medicine Summer 2020 - 19

p h i l a m e d s o c .o rg

Elevating the industry
Mutual is more than part of our name, it's part of
everything we do. We stay on top by focusing on our
policyholders, developing bold innovations and smarter
solutions to help you understand your risk, predict your
outcomes and improve your odds better than any other
insurer. We keep raising the standard in healthcare liability
insurance - because when you always put policyholders
first, there's no limit to how high you can go.

magmutual.com/innovation

Over the course of the current school year, schools across Philadelphia including T.M. Pierce, Ben Franklin High School, McClure
Elementary, Sullivan Elementary and Hopkinson Elementary
School all had to be shut down because of elevated levels of asbestos
contamination found within the schools.
Incredibly, it's unclear how long some of the contamination
had been occurring, and School District officials have been evasive
in sharing details about potential asbestos contamination in other
city schools.
Some have said that we shouldn't be surprised that environmental
health threats like this exist in our schools. They argue that our
school buildings are old and that these risks are just a byproduct of
underfunding our schools year after year.
And while everyone can agree that we must increase funding for
our public education system, research by the Philly Healthy Schools
Initiative has shown that the root cause of the current threats of
asbestos and lead contamination-and the slow, haphazard, and
inadequate remediation response by District officials-is largely
due to mismanagement, negligence, lack of substantive stakeholder
engagement and secrecy.

argument that it's a management problem and not a funding problem. Asbestos contamination in the SLA/Ben Franklin school was
found to have occurred after the District pumped a whopping $32
million into the building. It took an additional $13-18 million to
make the school adequate for students and teachers to occupy the
building. That's not a lack of money, that's a lack of management
and leadership1.
Having school buildings that are safe from contaminants that
are known carcinogens, trigger learning disorders, or other health
effects should be a basic right for Philadelphia's school children and
workforce-not a privilege.
Yet, even the most basic standards to protect our kids and
teachers from environmental health risks in school buildings are
almost non-existent at the federal, state, and local level.
This has to change.
The Philly Healthy Schools Initiative was created three years ago
to do just that: to bring together parents, teachers and principals,
students and community members, and public health experts to
develop a plan to address the environmental health threats found
in our school buildings.

The asbestos outbreak at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA)
and Ben Franklin High School building last summer bolsters the

800-282-4882

continued on next page

https://kywnewsradio.radio.com/articles/news/ben-franklin-sla-prep-for-students-after-asbestos-clean-up
Summer 2020 : Philadelphia Medicine 19

https://philamedsoc.org/ http://www.magmutual.com/innovation https://kywnewsradio.radio.com/articles/news/ben-franklin-sla-prep-for-students-after-asbestos-clean-up

Philadelphia Medicine Summer 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Philadelphia Medicine Summer 2020