Now is the time to improve air quality in schools
With snow blanketing the state one day and mid-March temperatures hovering at 60 degrees the next, it’s hard to imagine what the heat index in our schools might be in a few short months.
That is, unless you spend your days in a classroom.
Connecticut’s aging school buildings — many of them constructed more than 50 years ago — typically have outdated, poorly maintained or nonexistent heating, ventilation and cooling systems. Classrooms often have windows that don’t open. Some have no windows at all.
Students and teachers know that by the end of the school year, indoor air temperatures will likely reach a sweltering 85 or 95 degrees. Even less obvious than the heat and humidity (but no less problematic) is the incidence of mold, dirty air ducts, rodent droppings and other health hazards making our school communities sick.
Make no mistake — these problems existed before the pandemic.
Today, however, COVID-19 highlights the urgency regarding concerns about air quality and air circulation in schools, where children spend the vast majority of their days.
Last spring, my colleagues and our students found ourselves in second-floor classrooms with temperatures and humidity levels at dangerously high levels. We were not alone. By early June, any given day was seeing dozens of Connecticut school closures due to oppressive heat. While the rooms in my school were hitting 95 degrees on a regular basis, several were in the triple digits. Some recorded temperatures of 108.
We want our schools to be places where students feel safe, comfortable and cared for, but that is simply not the reality. With indoor air temperatures consistently reaching unsafe levels at the beginning and end of every school year, students are hit with a double whammy: learning is next to impossible, and we see a greater incidence of heatstroke, dehydration, migraines and asthma-related illness.
For perspective, Connecticut has laws on the books regulating minimum and maximum temperatures at pet stores — 65 to 78 degrees. Remarkably, no such protections exist for children at school.
Connecticut lawmakers have an opportunity to change that, and we urge them to act now. A proposal before the Legislature’s Labor Committee — SB 423: An Act Improving Indoor Air Quality in Public School Classrooms — would establish minimum and maximum school temperature and humidity levels for schools and provide bond funding for remediation and installation of modern HVAC systems.
The quality of our educational facilities matters. For better or worse, school environments impact everything from our students’ physical and mental health to their behavior, memory and academic performance, and how much or how little we invest in them sends a message.
What does it say about how we value our students when we send them into buildings with mold in the ceilings, or roofs that leak? What does it say when we expect them to bundle up in coats indoors all winter, or send them home in the heat? What does it say about how children from low-income, minority or rural families are valued when they are far more likely to attend underfunded schools? What are the odds of retaining teachers in a district that neglects their work environment? We cannot achieve true health or education equity or excellence when we send children to crumbling, understaffed schools.
Bringing school facility standards in line with those we’ve established for pets is a start. Ensuring that they remain the safe, comfortable environment our students deserve will require an ongoing commitment.
Our elected officials have an opportunity to make that commitment this legislative session. We urge them to act now.