DES MOINES, IOWA (October 28, 2020) — In early October, The Center for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledged that people can become infected with COVID-19 through airborne transmission, especially in enclosed spaces with inadequate ventilation. As Iowa closes up for winter, the need for upgraded HVAC systems and improved ventilation in classrooms become an increasing concern.
The Iowa State Education Association (ISEA) is calling on state leaders to address this issue in Iowa’s public schools so indoor learning is safer for students and school employees this winter.
According to an August 2020 White Paper on Ventilation for Industrial Settings during the COVID-19 Pandemic, there are a number of steps which can be taken to make our school buildings and classrooms safer for the winter.
The White Paper was developed by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) out of concern for the proper use of ventilation controls in workplaces, including public schools where COVID-19 is present.
This document, in combination with the report from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), provide excellent road maps to healthier and safer school buildings and classrooms.
“Because school districts may not have addressed this concern before schools reopened this fall, we ask the Governor, The Iowa Department of Public Health, and The Iowa Department of Education to take immediate action to address this issue,” said Mike Beranek, ISEA President.
“We know that a multi-layered approach to fighting the pandemic is our best hope in keeping our students, school employees, and communities safe,” added Beranek. “This is also why we continue to ask for a mask mandate in all schools, more physical-distancing, more autonomy for schools to decide when they are at-risk of serious COVID spread, and HVAC and ventilation systems in our school buildings and classrooms that promote a healthy and safe environment.”
The ISEA represents preK-12 educators, education-support professionals, community-college faculty, Area Education Agency professionals, retired educators, and aspiring educations with contracts covering more than 50,000 employees. We promote quality public education by placing students at the center of everything we do while advocating for education professionals.
BACKGROUND:
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is an organization that first convened in 1938 by professionals dedicated to protecting the health of workers in the US. It generates recommendations which are adopted across the world as best practices. They have been in charge of ventilation-design manuals adopted by mechanical engineers and safety persons for decades.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is a global professional society of more than 55,000 members committed to serve humanity by advancing the arts and sciences of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, refrigeration, and their allied fields. ASHRAE established a Task Force to help deploy technical resources to address the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and possible future epidemics as it relates to the effects of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems on disease-transmission. Guidance and building-readiness information for different operational conditions has been developed for several building types, including commercial; residential; schools and universities; and health-care facilities.
