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Parents press Oxnard board to eliminate school pesticides after IPM briefing
Summary
After a University of California Cooperative Extension briefing on integrated pest management, parents and advocates urged the Oxnard School District to remove or sharply limit certain herbicides and pesticides from campus use; district staff said they would review the list chemical-by-chemical and pursue community partnerships to reduce risk.
The Oxnard School District board heard an overview of integrated pest management (IPM) and received extended public comment on pesticide use at campuses during its Jan. 14 meeting at McKenna School.
Homatel Cohen, an insect biologist with the University of California Cooperative Extension, told trustees that IPM relies on multiple layers of prevention and control — monitoring, habitat removal, mechanical measures and, as a last resort, carefully targeted chemical treatments. “Integrative pest management refers to a combination of tools that are used together to control pests,” Cohen said, noting the Healthy Schools Act’s requirements for parental notification and an IPM coordinator at every school.
Parents and community organizers urged the board to eliminate or drastically curtail on-campus use of several pesticides listed in the districtproposal. "I'm really concerned for these pesticides you're using at schools. I ask to completely eliminate them because of the kids' health," said Conrado Chavez during the public-comment period. Other speakers described chemicals that are banned in some countries and pushed the board for organic or nonchemical alternatives.
Trustees pressed Dr. Cohen and facilities staff on whether IPM techniques could replace specific chemicals on the districtlist. Cohen said some products could likely be removed under an IPM approach but others may be necessary for certain structural pests and would require pest-specific alternatives. “For some of the pesticides on this list there are probably a couple I think you could remove. But there also be some products I would actually add to the list,” he said, stressing that each chemical should be paired to the pest biology and application method when evaluating risk.
District staff told the board they had commissioned a consultant to review grounds protocols and that moving entirely to manual weed removal would carry significant staffing costs. Staff pledged to work with UCANR and community partners to review the proposed chemical list on a chemical-by-chemical basis, to refine notification and posting practices and to report back with specific recommendations and opportunities for community participation.
What happens next: trustees asked staff to craft a process for evaluating each listed pesticide in the context of pest target, delivery method and exposure risk. Staff also reiterated the district's obligation to follow the Healthy Schools Act, including the 72-hour parental notification requirement for spray events, and committed to more outreach and multilingual communication for parents.
The board did not adopt policy changes on the spot; staff said they would return with the more detailed chemical review and proposed operational changes for trustee consideration.
