Airflow issues shut 10 schools
Ten city school buildings with faulty ventilation systems will be shut down immediately for repairs and remain closed until the systems are upgraded, city officials announced Monday.
The buildings were identified during a survey of the ventilation systems in all 1,485 city school buildings, officials said, and will be closed to staff and students until further notice.
The announcement comes three days after city officials originally promised to release the results of a citywide school ventilation survey — a measure Mayor de Blasio announced on Aug. 25 to allay the fears of educators and parents worried that stagnant air in city education buildings could spread help spread the coronavirus.
Teachers are supposed to report to school buildings Tuesday for professional development, and students are slated to begin in-person classes on Sept. 21.
Repairs on the 10 deficient buildings are expected to take several days, officials said, but if they’re not done by the start of in-person classes, students will be assigned to alternative locations. Teachers will complete their training remotely until the building fixes are done, officials added.
City officials originally promised to publicly post results from the survey, including classroom-by-classroom inspections, by last Friday. Education Department officials now say the data will be posted online Tuesday, and principals were supposed to be notified Monday.
The engineers and contractors who conducted the inspections defined adequate ventilation as “the free flow of fresh air in and out of a space,” which can, “in the vast majority of cases, be achieved by having an open window,” an Education Department spokesman said.
Some educators have pushed for more specific measures, including analyzing how often the air in each room is replaced. Officials say they’re providing each building with a carbon dioxide monitor that can serve as a proxy measurement for airflow.
The city teachers union has been conducting its own ventilation checks, and union President Michael Mulgrew said the United Federation of Teachers worked with the city to come up with the list of the 10 problematic buildings.
“We will continue to monitor these buildings and other schools to make sure all ventilation problems are solved,” Mulgrew said. “Where repairs and upgrades cannot be made, we will work with the DOE to help find alternative space before students return Sept 21.”
One of the 10 buildings targeted for repairs is the Martin Luther King Jr. campus on the Upper West Side, which garnered attention when bewildered educators posted a video of inspectors using toilet paper attached to a yardstick to measure airflow from ceiling vents. Education Department officials defended the “toilet paper test” as one of the methods sanctioned by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for assessing air movement.
Other buildings shut down for repairs include: the Horace Greene School in Brooklyn; Harvest Collegiate, Leadership & Public Service, and Economics and Finance high schools in Manhattan; Firefighter Christopher A. Santora and Riverview schools in Queens; Sixth Ave. Elementary School in Manhattan, and the Norman Thomas campus in Manhattan.