We wanted to have a safe project with those other things being secondary. Occasionally, they found small problems that were then fixed before becoming major safety hazards. Katz convinced the school administration and the contractor to actually build walls instead of using plastic sheets to seal off areas under construction. That, in turn, cut down on the amount of dangerous fumes that could have spread to the occupied areas of the school. The union also pushed for less carpeting in the project.
Carpets are notorious breeding grounds for all sorts of environmental irritants.
With our involvement in the project, I felt that the people who were doing the work and those who were overseeing the work became much more aware of potential problems and did their best to try to prevent them. Brookline is just the beginning. It was the first time a teachers union had assumed an active oversight role in a renovation project. But unions across the state are now taking the sick-school problem very seriously. In a lot of cases, we found that it can be managed fairly inexpensively.