2026-04-09

Sick Note

Your kid’s school might have straight A’s and a toxic neighborhood. We grade both.

Consumer-facing school environmental hazard accountability — an automated public-interest site that turns fragmented EPA, NCES, water-quality, and environmental justice data into per-school environmental risk report cards for parents, teachers, journalists, and local activists.

Niche Explored

School environmental hazard accountability — per-school environmental risk intelligence using EPA, NCES, and public health data to answer: “What toxic facilities, contaminated water, and polluted air surround my child’s school?”

Existing Competition

EPA IAQ Tools for Schools — government resource, guidance-focused. No per-school data. No accountability. No narrative journalism. Just PDFs and webinars.
SchoolDigger.com — school ratings based on test scores. Zero environmental data.
GreatSchools.org — parent reviews, academic ratings. No environmental or safety metrics at all.
Niche.com — school rankings. Zero environmental data.
EWG Tap Water Database — covers municipal water systems but does NOT map to individual schools. No school-specific cross-referencing.
EPA ECHO Facility Search — raw data. No school context. Requires expertise to navigate.
EPA EJScreen — powerful tool but requires GIS expertise. Not school-specific.
ProPublica “Sacrifice Zones” — excellent investigative journalism but one-off articles, not an automated, searchable per-school database.

Gap identified: NOBODY provides a school-specific, parent-readable environmental hazard report card. The data exists across 5+ federal databases. Nobody has connected the dots at the individual school level for 130,000+ schools. This is a massive data journalism gap.

Data Sources Found

Primary (Free, API-accessible, frequently updated)

NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) — https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/ — Complete database of 130,000+ public schools. Includes: name, address, lat/lon, enrollment, demographics (race, free lunch %), grade levels. Annual updates. CSV download.
EPA ECHO REST API — https://echo.epa.gov/tools/web-services — RESTful API for querying regulated facilities by location. Returns: facility name, type, violations, enforcement actions, compliance status, penalties. Can query by lat/lon with radius. Updated weekly.
EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) — Available via ECHO downloads and TRI Explorer. Chemical-specific release quantities by facility. Annual updates. Can cross-reference with school locations.
EPA EJScreen API — Environmental justice screening data at census block level. Includes: diesel PM, air toxics cancer risk, lead paint indicators, proximity to Superfund/TRI/RMP/TSDF sites, demographic indices. REST API available.
Water Quality Portal — https://www.waterqualitydata.us/ — USGS/EPA cooperative. Water quality sample data by location. REST API. Can query by bounding box around schools.
EPA Superfund (CERCLIS/SEMS) — Hazardous waste site locations. Available via ECHO.
EPA Air Quality System (AQS) — Air monitoring station data. API available via AirNow and AQS Data Mart.

Secondary (Supplementary, state-level)

State drinking water in schools testing results — Many states (CA, NY, IL, NJ, PA, etc.) publish school-specific lead/copper testing. Formats vary by state.
USDA National School Lunch Program data — School-level participation. Proxy for economic vulnerability.
NCES School Survey on Crime & Safety — Building age, conditions data.
CDC PLACES — County/census tract health outcome data. Asthma rates, cancer rates near schools.

SEO Analysis

Keywords (high volume, low competition):
- “is my school safe” — underserved query
- “toxic chemicals near schools” — growing search interest post-COVID
- “environmental hazards near schools” — educational content gap
- “school air quality” — trending since COVID ventilation crisis
- “lead in school water” — periodic spikes with news coverage
- “pollution near [school name]” — 130K+ long-tail variations
- “EPA violations near me” — existing interest, school angle untapped
Search volume signals: Post-COVID, “school air quality” and “school safety” searches have sustained elevated levels. Environmental justice is a growing search category.
Content gap: No site answers “what’s the environmental risk profile of [specific school name]?”

Communities

r/Teachers — 2.1M members, frequent posts about school building conditions
r/Parenting — 5.2M members, environmental safety is recurring concern
r/EnvironmentalScience — academic/professional interest
r/PublicHealth — policy and data interest
Facebook parent groups — hyper-local, massive sharing potential for school-specific content
Twitter/X #SchoolSafety — active hashtag
PTA/PTO national networks — built-in distribution channel
Moms Clean Air Force — 1M+ members, natural partnership
Environmental justice advocacy orgs — will amplify content showing disparities

Image/Graphic Feasibility

Proximity maps — school location + nearby EPA facilities plotted on map. Can generate with Leaflet/MapLibre in static site.
Risk score gauges — visual gauges/dials for each hazard category. Easy SVG generation.
Demographic equity charts — bar charts comparing environmental burden by school demographics. Chart.js/D3 in static site.
Facility timeline charts — violation history over time per nearby facility. Auto-generated.
State/district comparison heat maps — color-coded maps of environmental risk by school district.
“What’s within 3 miles” radial diagrams — visually compelling, auto-generatable.
Custom mascot illustrations — AI-generated once, reused across site.

Market Size & Revenue Signals

53 million students in US K-12 public schools
~100 million parents/guardians of school-age children (including private school)
Parents are among the highest-donating demographics for cause-based content
Existing sites like GreatSchools get 45M+ monthly visits — there’s massive existing behavior of “look up my school online”
Newsletter list of parents concerned about school environmental safety = extremely high-value list for sponsors (air purifier companies, water filter companies, environmental law firms)
Environmental advocacy newsletter subscribers valued at $3-8 per subscriber