Health or Education Isn’t Choice

In a perfect world, schools full of vulnerable children would not exist next to fields full of toxic pesticides.

--Times Ventura County Editorial, 1998

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If only we lived in a perfect world. Because we do not, we are challenged as a community to come up with creative solutions that consider the importance of health and education for children.

This is of special concern to California Rural Legal Assistance Inc., which represents the children of California’s rural poor, including the children of farm workers. Education can define a child’s future. It enables children to achieve full human potential and to escape the cycle of poverty.

Throughout California, schools are bursting at the seams, and the need for additional classroom space is projected to increase as the student population rises and state-mandated class-size reduction programs are implemented.

Many of the schools in the Oxnard Elementary School District, for example, are aging and many more are overcrowded. There are a total of 13,341 students attending 20 elementary and middle schools in this district. The need for schools, especially in Oxnard, is real and immediate.

The lack of adequate available in-fill space within the city has forced school districts to look at agricultural land for the siting of new schools. Many of the schools that the Oxnard district has built or is planning have been sited on agricultural land.

As a result of farmland preservation efforts such as Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR), land in rural communities has become scarce. Although such ordinances are meant to control development of agricultural land, exemptions do exist specifically to allow the building of schools and affordable housing.

These exemptions are meaningless, however, if legitimate efforts to build schools or affordable housing in these areas can be squashed by preservationists who seek to protect such land by all means, even if children will have to continue to suffer.

During the last few years, problems associated with pesticide use on agricultural land near schools have received much-deserved attention. Agricultural production in Ventura County relies heavily on pesticides that, when used around schools, put children at risk.

Ventura County has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the California counties with the highest number of schools located near heavy use of methyl bromide, a particularly toxic pesticide.

Because the health and future of the children of Oxnard rest in the balance, decisions must be made by institutions and government agencies with full disclosure about needs, benefits, risks and alternatives. Parents, including farm workers, must be involved.

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Agricultural producers have a responsibility, as do local, state and federal regulatory agencies, to conduct their business in the safest possible manner. This includes complying with laws, providing adequate notification and seeking creative and safe ways for farms and schools to coexist.

Additional responsibility falls on the proponents of agricultural land preservation. The social and economic consequences of preserving agricultural land place a burden on all of us--not just the school districts--to find safe and adequate school sites for all children. Land-use decisions cannot be made in a vacuum. We must look at the issue with a more holistic approach that will benefit the entire community of Ventura County.

Students in the Oxnard school district, 89% of whom are students of color, bear an unequal burden of attending aging educational facilities with overcrowded classrooms because we as a community have failed to address this issue in a more responsible manner. Communities of color, especially farm workers and their children, suffer not only from the lack of schools but also face a greater threat from environmental toxics, such as pesticides, where they work, live and attend school.

Oxnard parents, including farm workers, should not be forced to choose between educating their children or protecting their health.