Schools improve ventilation ahead of new year but parents still not breathing easy

Kate Southwell has been preparing her fouryear-old son for his first day of school all summer. She has had him practise wearing a mask for extended periods of time and emphasized the importance of washing his hands before his first day at a school in Toronto’s east end. She’s also looked through the Toronto District School Board’s list of schools to see what kind of ventilation system her son’s building will have as COVID-19 infection rates in Ontario once again rise.“I don’t know a single parent who’s not concerned, especially seeing the numbers out of the States of kids being hospitalized with COVID,” said Southwell, who is especially worried about the Delta variant.. “I think the principals and the teachers are clearly doing their best, but they can only do so much with what they’ve got.” Parents across Canada share Southwell’s concern about the air quality in their children’s schools. Kyenta Martins, whose daughters are in grades 5 and 7 at a school in Vancouver, said she’s angry because despite her many attempts, she hasn’t received details on how the ventilation systems that have been upgraded will be monitored.“If they’re holding up Vancouver as the paragon of ventilation when they’re still not providing details on monitoring of the air quality and how the HVAC units are running, it makes me very concerned for the rest of the school districts in B.C.,” she said. Ontario’s education minister, Stephen Lecce, promised during the summer that all classrooms in the province without mechanical ventilation systems would have a standalone HEPA unit when students return to school. The provincial government earmarked $600 million in funding specifically to improve ventilation in schools.

Last week, Lecce said that all 72 publicly funded school boards in Ontario had made that goal ..... Source: ctvnews.ca