chemical was applied in classrooms in an effort to control head lice. The parent’s
complaint also noted that she had seen school staff applying diazinon to control bees
near the school building, and that her son had seen a janitor spraying playground
equipment. The parent was concerned about potential exposure to her son and other
students. An investigation showed that the school nurse had requested the spraying
for head lice. Following an investigation, the district was cited for multiple violations
of state pesticide law, including use of a pesticide product not registered in the state,
authorizing applications by uncertified employees, failure to keep records of applica-
tions, and failure to post notices at athletic fields that had been treated with Roundup
(which contains glyphosate). The school signed a consent order and a $2,500 penalty
was suspended.^44
November 12, 1998, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.A pest control firm mis-
takenly drilled through wall voids and into two classroom walls at Laing Middle
School during a ‘‘trench-and-rod’’ termiticide application to the building’s exterior
foundation. The pesticide Dursban TC (chlorpyrifos), which is not registered for in-
terior use, was injected into the holes and into at least one of the classrooms. The
teacher reported a strong odor upon returning to the classroom the next morning.
She reported it to the principal, and the room was aired out. When the odor
remained the following week, the students were moved to another classroom, and the
pest control applicator was called back to the school. He noted the strong smell at
that time, patched the holes in the walls, and hired a company to clean the carpets,
walls, ceiling, desks, and pencils in both classrooms. Some textbooks that had been
contaminated with the pesticide were replaced. However, the odor persisted, and a
second carpet cleaning and general cleanup was done in December.
A student mentioned the pesticide ‘‘spill’’ to a parent in late January, two and a half
months after it had occurred. This parent talked with school staff and realized that
the incident had not been reported to state agencies. She reported the incident, and
only then were other parents notified. Parents began to wonder if strange illnesses
their children had been experiencing, including flu-like symptoms and one child with
peeling hands, may have been caused by exposure to the chemical. Chlorpyrifos resi-
dues were found in carpet samples collected by state investigators two and a half
months after the application, after two professional carpet cleanings. The pest control
company was cited and fined by the state for applying a pesticide in a manner incon-
sistent with its labeling. The school board later sued the pest control company.^45
July 1998, Somerset, Wisconsin.Staff at the state Department of Agriculture,
Trade, and Consumer Protection circulated a survey to state school districts inquiring
about their pesticide use practices. Agency officials noted that St. Anne’s School filled
out the survey indicating that the school used chlordane, a persistent organochlorine
pesticide that has been banned since 1988. An agency inspector visited the school
and confiscated a partially used one-pound container of the pesticide. He was told
that the product had been at the school since at least the start of the school year, and
that it had been used once during the most recent school year. The state agency did
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