Students First....Safety Always

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Dawn Olson Letter

Wednesday, September 20, 2006 7:31 AM

Subject: Thank you for hearing the public on the issue of the powerlines last evening...

Dear Members of the Governing Board,

As uncomfortable as I was to speak last evening, it is something that clearly is very personal to me. In my haste, I forgot to mention how pleased I have been with my families experience at STMS. My 7th grade son loves his teachers (if you know 12 year olds, the fact that they still love anything is a gracious gift), he attends this school with the same kids he has grown up with (as we've lived at our residence for 13 years), and the principal, Dr. Beazley has been forthcoming, responsive and amazing in all he's done to bring STMS to greatness.

I was of the understanding that the vote to bring this issue some resolution would take place next week. While pleased to hear the board is willing to perhaps investigate some other options, this also causes me concern. How long do we expose kids to levels of EMF's that are clearly higher than they would have been had they stayed in their old building? At one point this year, parents heard that the lines would be moved during the Decemeber break. I don't know where that information came from, but it gave parents hope that concerns about student safety were real and far reaching. Now I am hearing things like "let's study it longer" and "let's get second and third opinions". This concerns me. If we know for a fact that moving those lines will reduce the EMF exposure, we need to move them. My son was at a campus with little risk or exposure to this type of problem. Through no fault of his own, by the decision of boundary attendance lines, he has now been placed at a school with elevated levels of exposure.

Almost 30 years ago if you drove around Phoenix and looked at school playgrounds, you'd have seen kids playing basketball, tetherball, football, dodgeball, playing on equipment and running and laughing with careless abandon. Flash ahead to 2006 and the scene is remarkably similiar except now, rising out of playgrounds all over the city, you'll see giant shade structures looming large! What accounts for their proliferation? 30 years ago no one was talking much or really thought much about our exposure the sun. It wasn't that no one cared about me as a student playing on those fields. We just didn't know any better. Today we know better, according to the Arizona Department of Health and Safety, Arizona ranks number 2 in skin cancer incidences in the WORLD! So schools and PTO's are fundraising like mad to provide some shade for our playgrounds.

30 years ago, no one needed to build a school under the power lines. Land was in abundance and it was relatively inexpensive. Only now are we pushing the building envelopes of our cities. So this situation is coming into focus. We don't have 30 years of longitudinal data to say what will happen to our kids from this type of exposure. But we do have some preliminary data to indicate they won't be as safe as if they weren't exposed. Here's the problem, a shade structure won't fix this. And even if it could and the school couldn't afford one, parents could still protect their own children by providing them with a good hat or cap and a $5 bottle of sunscreen. What can I do to protect my son from EMF's? If only a $5 bottle of sunscreen would do the job. But it won't.

The board voting to spend $1.4 million on moving these lines may help. That's something the PTO's and parents can't do on our own. We are left with no way to protect our kids other than unenrolling them from what is a fine learning establishment and very much a part of our community. Please don't make parents have to make this choice.

Thank you again for your time and service to our district.

Sincerely,

Dawn Olson

Category: Letters