Schools mull outdoor classes
Schools across the country are dealing with aging air conditioning, heating and circulation systems.
It has been seven years since the central air conditioning system worked at the New York City middle school where Lisa Fitzgerald O’Connor teaches. As a new school year approaches amid the coronavirus pandemic, she and her colleagues are threatening not to return unless it’s repaired.
Her classroom has a window air-conditioning unit, but she fears the stagnant air will increase the chances that an infected student could spread the virus.
“Window units just aren’t going to cut it. We don’t want to stay cool, we just want the air to flow properly,” said O’Connor, a science teacher who has worked at the Patria Mirabal School in Manhattan since 2009. “We are really super stressed out about it.”
Schools around the country are facing similar problems as they plan or contemplate reopening this fall, dealing with aging air conditioning, heating and circulation systems that don’t work well or at all because maintenance and replacement were deferred due to tight budgets.
Concerns about school infrastructure are adding momentum to plans in some districts, even in colder climates, to take classes outdoors for the sake of student and teacher health.
Nationwide, an estimated 41% of school districts need to update or replace their heating, ventilation and cooling systems in at least half their schools, according to a federal report issued in June.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., chairman of the House Education committee, called on the federal government to help districts improve their systems, saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called ventilation an important part in the fight against coronavirus spread at schools.
“Ventilation is key, and you don’t fix that for free,” Scott said.
There is no evidence that the disease can spread through ventilation systems from one classroom to the next, according to Dr. Edward Nardell, a Harvard Medical School professor who specializes in airborne diseases. The danger, Nardell said, is from ineffective systems that don’t remove floating viruses and let them linger in classrooms after they are expelled in an infected person’s breath, sneeze or cough.
“Most schools are designed for comfort, not for infection control. So there is a danger that if you put 20 kids in a room, that if one of them has asymptomatic COVID and is infectious, you now have 19 more kids who are exposed,” Nardell said.
Healthy children almost always recover from COVID-19, but they can pass the disease to teachers, parents and other adults.
Nardell believes schools should consider installing ultraviolet lights along classroom ceilings, a technology some used in the 1950s and earlier to combat measles, tuberculosis and other airborne diseases and that is still used in hospitals and homeless shelters. Viruses and bacteria are destroyed using a spectrum of UV light that is safe for humans.
Manufacturers say the devices would cost $3,000 per classroom.
Some, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, say one solution to air circulation problems may be teaching classes outdoors, which was done during tuberculosis and influenza outbreaks in the early 1900s, even in cold weather. The coronavirus spreads less efficiently outdoors and students could more easily sit 6 feet apart.
Having classes outdoors has other benefits, said Sharon Danks, CEO of Green Schoolyards America, a Berkeley, California, nonprofit that advocates for outdoor education. Children are less distracted and feel better emotionally when taught outdoors, she said.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday that the reopening of some of the state’s schools amid the coronavirus outbreak has gone well except for photos shared on social media showing students crowded together in hallways.
“I think quite honestly this week went real well other than a couple of virtual photos,” Gov. Brian Kemp said at a news conference with the U.S. surgeon general.
Photos shared widely on social media last week showed hallways packed shoulder to shoulder with students at North Paulding High School northwest of Atlanta. School officials later announced that six students and three staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus, and that the school would be closed Monday and Tuesday while the building is disinfected.
Kemp and U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said that Georgians can expect to see newly reported cases as schools and businesses reopen.
“I want the people of Georgia to know that we don’t have to wait until we get a vaccine, we don’t have to hide until we get a miracle therapeutic,” Adams said.
“To the kids in schools: I want you to understand, if you want prom in person next year, if you want to go to spring break, if you want an in-person graduation, then we need you to work together,” he added.