Toxic schools? Teacher perceptions of indoor air quality and negative place attachment

Abstract

The perception of indoor air quality (IAQ) in school buildings has garnered much attention. The self-reported experiences of teachers regarding the phenomenon of suffering from toxic IAQ was missing from scholarly work before the onset of the coronavirus. Toxic IAQ can be defined as the presence of toxic chemicals or compounds (including biological) in the air at levels that pose health risks and can affect a person's health, comfort, and performance (Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2018a). Since the onset of the pandemic, teachers are leaving the workforce in unprecedented numbers due to poor working conditions, unreasonable demands, and unrealistic expectations (Steiner and Woo, 2021). Addressing teacher retention is critical to stymie continuing teacher shortages and the adverse impact on students. This sequential mixed-methods study confronts the gap between place theory, specifically the negative emotional person-place bond, and perceived IAQ in public school buildings. Little research has been presented on the role the physical workplace has on teacher well-being and whether psychosociological environmental relationships can predict place attachment outcomes. The question of how teacher perceptions of IAQ relate to negative place attachment was explored using survey research of 242 educators in four public school districts in the Midwest. Survey data was collected April-May of 2021, with 13 follow-up purposive interviews, with the criteria of teachers' presenting negative place attachment feelings, during August 2021. The research revealed the more teachers realize their health concerns about toxic IAQ in their workplace, the more negative place attachment they feel. This involves the process of grieving, and feeling frustrated, angry, exhausted, and confused, like separation and divorce. When a teacher has crossed a threshold of divorced feelings toward the school building, they make choices: to stay employed, assigned to their building, feeling negative place attachment, ask to be reassigned, or leave. The two significant predictors of negative place attachment revealed through stepwise linear regression, were physical "healthy building" attributes and health concerns about the IEQ/IAQ in the school environment. Teachers' perceptions of aged buildings as being unhealthy, including the inoperability of classroom windows, aged carpet, and lack of ventilation were better understood by understanding what it means to occupy a workplace teachers perceive to have toxic IAQ. Employees with health conditions experienced feelings of being misunderstood, not taken seriously, and additionally faced a host of complicated social interactions with their administrators, co-workers, and family because of health ailments they attributed to their workplace. The study resulted in the creation of two new theoretic models: a revisiting of Tripartite Model of Place Attachment to include place detachment, the threshold crossed in absentia of any place attachment feelings, and an epidemiological model for addressing indoor air quality in schools and suggested interventions for practice. While these models help to develop methods, redress, and identification for negative place attachment due to indoor air quality, it was not possible to identify a consistent predictor of negative place attachment. This suggests that the themes identified in the interview process alongside a predictor model can help identify schools where intervention is essential.