Healthy Schools

Victory: Governor Schwarzenegger signs AB 405 into law.

A vast majority of California schools use pesticides that are known or suspected carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, or nerve toxins in and around school grounds and buildings.  Both because of their physiology and their behavior, children are especially susceptible to the dangers of pesticides.  In fact, attention deficit disorders and intelligence loss may result from exposure to certain pesticides.

To help stop the danger that pesticides present to our state’s children, CALPIRG and an alliance of health care and community groups worked to pass the Healthy Schools Act of 2000.  This law gives parents the right to know what pesticides are being used in their children’s schools and encourages schools to reduce their use of toxic pesticides.

With the passage of this bill, Environment California (the new home of CALPIRG’s environmental work) and our coalition partners began working with a number of school districts across the state to adopt least-toxic pest management programs.

In 2004, Environment California continued the fight to protect the health of California’s children and teachers by eliminating the worst pesticides from California schools through the Healthy Schools Act of 2004 (AB 1006 – Chu).  Unfortunately, this legislation faced heavy opposition from the pesticide industry and was defeated in the Legislature.  Environment California will continue to look for opportunities to bring this legislation back in the coming legislative session.

Assembly Bill 405

In October 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB 405 (Montañez-San Fernando) into law.  AB 405, supported by Environment California, prohibits the use of experimental and/or insufficiently tested pesticide products on school sites.  Additionally, AB 405 prohibits the use of pesticide products on school sites that have been designated for phase out or for which registration has been canceled or suspended.

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