New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Ventilation at city school raises parents’ concerns
NEW HAVEN — Parent Eric March is on the fence as the city prepares to open school doors when the second marking period begins Nov. 9, giving parents the option of sending students to school in person two days per week or keeping them at home fulltime
“My wife and I have gone back and forth over the summer,” he said.
While he had leaned toward sending his son back to second grade at Quinnipiac Real World Magnet Math STEM School in person, March said a present lack of ventilation has caused him to reconsider his stance.
Quinnipiac, one of the oldest buildings in the school district’s building plant, has self-contained modular heating units and the HVAC system has sealed-off vents that do not incorporate outside air.
“It does not take a engineer to figure out that this would be a problem for trying to prevent the spread of COVID,” March said.
Michael Pinto, chief operating officer for New Haven Public Schools, said a task force — comprising health, building safety and ventilation officials — has toured the school buildings. The district has contracted with engineering firm Fuss & O’Neill to evaluate the HVAC systems in all of the district’s schools.
“As we get the draft reports we will begin to implement the recommendations,” he said. As of Friday, Pinto said the firm had not yet produced a draft report on Quinnipiac School.
After learning about the ventilation system in a communication from Quinnipiac School Principal Monica Morales over the summer, March urged
parents at the school to write letters to district officials to get attention for the issue. He said he believes the HVAC system needs a complete renovation —ideally a duct system — for the school to be safe during the pandemic.
Morales declined to comment for this story.
In an email provided to the Register, district Facilities Manager Joseph Barbarotta told March his concerns were “justifiable” and “genuine and real.”
“Our immediate fix for the cooling and ventilation is to use the window units to bring fresh filtered air into the building. Our decision to take this direction was based upon the timeframe and the obstacles the electrical service and concrete building posed to us. We are looking at ways to heat and ventilate the rooms for the winter,” he told March in August.
When March heard the state’s Office of School Construction Grants & Review Director Konstantinos Diamantis say on a call with New Haven Board of Education members that the state would ensure the schools are safe, he reached out to him, as well. Diamantis shared his office’s findings with March, stating that the individual unit
heaters do have fresh air intake but in cold weather “the cold air resulted in the hot water piping freezing, (so) the louvers have been sealed shut.”
“Facilities will open these fresh air intakes and have them fully operational for the cold weather. In the meantime the classrooms do have windows that open. All windows will be opened and a box fan blowing out will be placed in a remote corner at the teachers end of the classroom. This should enable adequate ventilation as long as the weather is reasonable,” the report said. “In a couple of classrooms, a large window type air conditioners
are being installed, by removing an entire large fixed window, creating a temporary wood framework that locates the air conditioner near ceiling with the louvers adjusted to blow up. The rest of the window opening is filled with clear plastic glazing.”
March said he believes officials are using “piecemeal Band-Aid solutions” instead of addressing the root concerns about ventilation in the school building.
Anne Rhodes, a parent of a first-grader at the school, said she and her husband are determined to keep their son home when schools open their doors.
“It’s been a lot of, ‘don’t worry, it’s all fine,’ because every school is different and every facility is different,” she said. “I don’t feel safe sending my child to school right now.”
Dave Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers union, said he is confident the district is collaborating appropriately with public health and state officials to ensure the school buildings have the proper ventilation and filtration. When 11 schools opened their doors in September to provide in-person instruction for a small number of highneeds students who could only benefit academically and developmentally from a physical classroom setting, Cicarella said the district was diligent about balancing the air.
Cicarella, an alumnus of Quinnipiac School from when it was newly opened, described it as “a good little building, but it is very old.”
He said he knows that both Quinnipiac and West Rock STREAM Academy are “cutting it close” with receiving the attention they need to be properly ventilated for students to return on Nov. 9, but he is “cautiously optimistic” that the district is on track.
Cicarella said he is in contact with Superintendent of Schools Iline Tracey about the status of building preparedness before the district shifts from fully remote to hybrid learning.
“We share the same concerns: we want to make sure before those kids go back that it’s safe to do so,” he said. “But we know we do have a month left and they’re doing some work on it.”
Board of Education member Darnell Goldson, who served as president of the board for two years in 2018 and 2019, said district staff has made board members aware that Quinnipiac and West Rock STREAM Academy are aging facilities. He said that is why, when the district was discussing downsizing the number of schools as a cost-saving measure, he and others recommended those schools.
At a Thursday committee meeting, school board Vice President Matt Wilcox sought assurance that the district would communicate with board members if individual schools weren’t up to the standard. Pinto assured him that would be the case.