After the pandemic hit, the largest school district in Kansas set to calculating how much outdoor air it should pull into its buildings.
Wichita Public Schools turned to the nation’s top sources for expertise, then boosted ventilation in ways that scientists say dramatically cut the risk of inhaling COVID-19.
Evidence that schools — as well as operators of other buildings that bring people together — should take those steps has solidified, buoyed by scientific findings that the virus spreads through particles in the air, not by lurking on doorknobs.
Yet scientists say most American schools probably don’t bring in enough outdoor air or filter indoor air the way they should. In some schools, the windows don’t even open.
“We are under-ventilating nearly every space we spend time in indoors,” Harvard School of Public Health professor Joseph Allen said in a recent media briefing.
A year into the pandemic, some Kansas schools don’t know one of the most vital facts about their air quality: The rate at which air turns over.
In the course of a single hour, say experts at Harvard, the air in a typical classroom should change out four to six times, replaced with outdoor air and appropriately recycled indoor air.
Harvard offers a five-step guide to help schools measure classroom ventilation and a list of questions that communities should ask their school leaders.
Poor air quality takes a subtle daily toll on health, psychological well-being and ability to work and learn effectively, scientists warn. So though fending off COVID-19 is top of mind today, communities should push for proper ventilation and filtration in their buildings even after the pandemic is in the rearview mirror.
No one tracks ventilation in Kansas schools, let alone whether the buildings make changes to hit targets set by engineers and health experts for pandemic safety.
Though federal agencies say schools should take air quality seriously, infectious disease experts and engineers say the government did too little, too late to explain the urgency and the options.
In the vacuum of information, schools in Kansas and elsewhere spent on a dazzling array of products (such as ionizers) that many experts recommend avoiding.
State agencies, meanwhile, don’t employ staff with the right expertise to help districts measure their ventilation and plot a course to improvement.
The Kansas State Board of Education adopted guidelines explaining the value of ventilation and pointing schools to filters recommended by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.
It doesn’t, however, require schools to act.
