Despite billions of dollars in federal covid-relief money available to upgrade heating and air-conditioning systems in K-12 schools, most U.S. public schools have made no major investments.
Many schools have been slow to spend covid relief dollars because of the time-consuming process of hiring contractors and getting state or federal approval, said Jordan of FutureEd.
School districts are required to spend at least 20% of American Rescue Plan aid on academic recovery — such as summer school, instructional materials, and teacher salaries — leading some schools to prioritize those needs ahead of ventilation, Jordan said. But she noted that aof school district spending plans indicated districts intend to devote nearly $10 billion from the latest round of funding to ventilation and air filtration in coming years, budgeting about $400 a student.
Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia, meanwhile, purchased “medical-grade” air purifiers for isolation rooms in school nurse offices, where children with covid symptoms wait for pickup. These units are equipped with HEPA filtration and interior ultraviolet light to kill germs, and are powerful enough to clean all the air in the isolation rooms every three minutes.Seattle Public Schools used relatively inexpensive hand-held sensors to assess air quality in every classroom, Brown said.
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