Helen Beaumont has taught the third grade at Bret Harte Elementary School for six now. Her students are hard at work on the assignment she has just given them. A quick glance around the room shows the eyes of the class focused on their drawings. Their crayons move hastily about the white construction paper in front of them. The project they are working on is an illustration of what they would like their neighborhood to look like. Beaumont smiles as she observes a young girl's drawing of colorful flowers and clean blue water.
Bret Harte Elementary School is one of a handful of schools in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco. The school sits just outside of the old Naval facility known as Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. A wide variety of regulated and hazardous materials were handled at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard during its more than 100 years of operation, including metals, petroleum products, lead, asbestos, solid waste, and industrial debris. For years now the community has voiced concerns about the long-term safety and health impacts of these materials because they are so close to residential housing and local businesses. Bret Harte Elementary is dedicated to educating its students early on about the several health risks that plague the area. Teachers and faculty agree that student awareness should be an equal part of daily curriculum.
According to the San Francisco Medical Society, a collaborative of six elementary schools and 30 community-based organizations in the Bayview recently lead a neighborhood survey to pinpoint an effective response to the problem of asthma in the region.
Six hundred and sixty-five parents or caregivers of 2,150 students responded to the survey, yielding an overall response rate of 30 percent. Seventeen percent of the respondents answered yes when asked if their child had ever been diagnosed with asthma. Nine percent reported siblings with an asthma diagnosis and an additional 19 percent reported asthma-like symptoms. These symptoms included wheezing, shortness of breath, frequent coughing, tiredness before or after exercise, and tightness in the chest. While any one of these symptoms is not by itself diagnostic of asthma, it does suggest respiratory problems that need follow-up.
"It isn't just that we want our kids to be informed, it's also that we want them to know that they can do something to change things," said Beaumont. As a matter of fact, Bret Harte students are involved in several hands-on projects throughout the community. A cleanup and restoration hike is held annually on Bayview Hill, an old Ohlone Indian burial site. Students and teachers set aside an afternoon to march up the hill and pick up debris. Minor landscape work is done as well, with students planting flowers and trees. The hike isn't for the faint of heart, as it involves dedication and endurance to reach the steep and sloping destination.
Narda Harrigan, an advisor and community relations figure with the school, is the organizer of the project. "There were plans to build low-income housing on the hill a few years back, but being that it was designated as sacred Ohlone grounds, nothing was ever built...it's a great lesson for the children, to show that sometimes land can be set aside for spiritual and environmental purposes," Harrigan said.
Bret Harte also boasts the only Health Fair in the area. The fair itself is a big deal for students and faculty alike since it is organized solely by the children and their teachers. The health fair brings doctors, firemen, police officers, and sometimes, local politicians into the area and helps to inform neighborhood families about everything from fire prevention to the early warning signs of asthma. Student booths are set up to show what they have learned in various science courses taught at the school. Drawings, letters to the city, and even computer animated films are previewed during the fair, all done by the student body.
These works are vivid examples of just how much the children are learning about the hazardous health conditions they face on an everyday basis. By taking a walk through the halls of Bret Harte Elementary, one will see the variety of environmentally themed murals that adorn the walls of this school. The school is the only certified school of the arts in San Francisco for elementary level children. Teachers have taken advantage of the program, by offering a daily art course to all levels of students, kindergarten through fifth grade. Along with this distinguished certification came a membership to the Bayview Hunters Point Mural Project. Student murals adorn The Bayview Opera House, the Bret Harte Campus, and even the Naval Shipyard itself.
Blackened bay water, struggling marine animals, smoke stacks, and frowning children are depicted in many mural scenes, but more importantly several pieces show blue skies, lush landscapes, and children playing along the shore line. These visions seem to offer hope if not only through the eyes of these young boys and girls.
Back in Beaumont's class, she reads aloud the history of the Naval Shipyard to the students. Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is made up of 493 acres of land on a peninsula and 465 acres under water in the San Francisco Bay. After World War II, activities shifted from ship repair to submarine servicing and testing. The operations ceased in 1974 when most of the property was leased to a commercial ship repair company. Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was approved for closure by the Base Realignment Act Commission in 1991 and the operational base closed in 1994.
The children aren't fully aware of all of these details. Such detail might confuse rather than aid in the child's understanding. Rather they are taught that the shipyard was used during the war and that now, because of the hazardous materials kept there, the area is not a safe place. Students are told of how the waste left from the Naval Shipyard has harmed their surrounding environment and even caused people in the neighborhood to become ill.
Bret Harte has prided itself for several years now as an elementary school which has chosen to keep students and faculty informed not only of progress made in cleaning up the neighborhood, but also about steps taken backwards in the fight to help detoxify the community. When school officials believe local threats such as the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the waste water treatment plant ignore health risks at the expense of the neighborhood, they encourage "take action" behavior from parents and all faculty members.
"It's important that the children see adult action being taken, (so that) they can see just how important it is to protect the neighborhood which they live in," said Harrigan. "I find that the children are eager to learn about how they can clean up the area and do their parts...many of them belong to the school's Earth Day Everyday Club," said Beaumont.
The Earth Day Everyday Club was yet another brainchild of Narda Harrigan. The program has helped Bret Harte students grow and monitor their very own fenced in garden. Lunch wasted is saved in green receptacles and later traded for mulch and soil. Students in the club learn to plant and grow corn, beans, carrots, tomatoes, and even watermelons. "By showing them the importance of recycling, they learn to pick up litter and waste in their own neighborhood," said Harrigan.
Harrigan believes that her students are far more informed of the environmental issues of the neighborhood than their parents. In the future she plans on organizing more parent workshops, where they will be allowed to voice their views in a forum-like atmosphere. Bret Harte is glad that its student body of approximately 450 children is being educated about the health risks and environmental hazards around them. Fourth and fifth grade field trips are taken to the shipyard. Children collect trash and at the same time get a first hand account of the polluted region.
"Last month we went there and picked up litter...it was hard to believe that so much trouble can come from there," said Sondra Ellis, a fourth grade student. "I have asthma, so does my mom, and cousin...I think it's from all the pollution in the air from cars and from the shipyard," she said.
The Health Education Resource Center (HERC) provides classes for children who suffer from asthma. Bret Harte has worked with the center for the last few years now, and has seen the number of those afflicted with asthma rise substantially. Fifteen percent of Bret Harte's students suffer from asthma. Many have several family members with the same disorder. The HERC lessons have allowed families who suffer from asthma to combat the problem with inhalers, nebulizers, and scheduled doctor's visits. Bret Harte students with asthma are given special classes to help them cope with the respiratory disorder, which can literally leave a child feeling as if they are breathing through a straw.
Kenny Bradley, a third grader, sits on a bench outside during recess time. Clutched in his small hand is an inhaler. The boy has been ordered by his doctor to sit out of any physical activities. Young Kenny isn't frowning, however. A friend comes along and offers him a piece of a fruit roll snack. "I know that the only way for me to get better is to sit here," said Kenny. "Later on, after lunch, I can go help to water the garden." For now, the children at Bret Harte Elementary School are still very young. Their innocence shows as they chase each other around the field playing a game of boys against girls tag.
These students have their whole lives ahead of them. Learning about how they can improve their neighborhood and help to keep it clean can only benefit them in the long run. "The more of us that are educated as to what is really going on around here the better," said Narda Harrigan. "These students are really motivated to change things, and that's what's important," she said.