Upgrades to school ventilation must be a priority

After a year and a half of uncertainty, the drive from all corners has been to have children in school and keep them there. Teachers prefer it, students benefit from it and parents need it. Making sure the school is as safe as possible in the COVID era is therefore a priority.

That’s why mask mandates are in place and why they need to stay. It’s true that Connecticut is not in the kind of dire situation that other parts of the country are facing, but we want to keep it that way. As long as COVID is around and continuing to spread, precautions will be necessary.

But masks are only part of the equation. Vaccines are the best defense against COVID, which is why the governor’s mandate that all teachers be vaccinated or tested regularly was the right move, and why parents of young children are eagerly awaiting approval for children under 12 to receive their shots.

Then there’s the building itself. Some children are lucky enough to attend modern facilities with advanced air flow technologies and up-to-date HVAC systems. Many others go to school every day in a building that was out of date when their parents were there. In the cities, it’s not uncommon for school buildings to date back 100 years.

Some have been retrofitted with modern air-flow systems, but many other buildings just go without. Teachers can open the windows on a hot day, but that’s about the extent of their options. It’s a great environment for a virus to spread even in the absence of a pandemic.

There is reason to hope the situation will improve. The federal government has responded to the COVID crisis with unprecedented largess, and the state and communities are now faced with questions on how to spend all the money showering in from Washington. Better air quality in schools should be a top priority.

This doesn’t need to mean all new schools. If a building is perfectly functional, a town shouldn’t need to build a new facility on unclaimed land and spend tens of millions of dollars to do it. A retrofit will work well for many communities, as long as assurances are in place that the end product will be up to the highest standards.

In other places, a new school might be necessary, but that might have been the case already. If a building dates back to early in the previous century, chances are it was due for a redo anyway.

A growing coalition has emerged, including teachers and administrators, to ensure that federal funds are directed toward better ventilation in schools. There are limits on where those dollars can go, but improved health should be at the top of the list, especially at a time of a still-raging pandemic.

There are other reasons to improve air quality systems. Without air conditioning, schools sometimes have to be let out early on hot days, leading parents to scramble and sometimes hurting their employment situations. A modern building keeps everything running on schedule.

But the pandemic is the main reason to demand better air flow. We need to take steps to ensure public health, and modern ventilation in schools must be a priority.