Ventilation in Classrooms – Talk to Us!

September 29, 2020

Unsurprisingly, with the majority of Ontario’s 2-million students returning to school in-person, there are COVID-19 cases attributed to schools. In fact, as of September 28, there are 272 COVID cases in Ontario’s public schools. Some professional engineers are already asking questions about the link between schools with a high level of disrepair and susceptibility to COVID-19 outbreaks.

What continues to be a surprise is how Ontario’s Premier and Minister of Education claim that the back-to-school “plan” their government has funded offers every precaution and safeguard possible for a safe return to school. In mid-June, when this government received the SickKids report, they saw that a key recommendation for a safe return to school was good ventilation. And yet, our provincial government waited a full two months before allocating only a fraction of the funding required for school boards to ensure proper ventilation in all Ontario classrooms. This timing clearly left school boards with very little time to conduct the work required. 

By the time the Province had come around to allocating $50-million for ventilation improvements, Fix Our Schools had already heard from dozens of parents, teachers, and education workers from across the province about specific ventilation concerns that we outlined here.

In a nutshell, when a school is old,  the only “ventilation system” available is to open windows. Lamentably, in many old schools across this province, there are classrooms with no windows, there are classrooms with windows that do not open, and in old schools that have had window replacements, there are classrooms with windows that only open a tiny bit – not nearly enough to create any real ventilation. For old Ontario schools with newer windows that, for safety reasons, are only able to be opened a tiny bit, Fix Our Schools was excited to see that some school boards were adopting the inexpensive and relatively quick solution (compared to other ventilation solutions) of re-setting these windows to be able to open more to allow for better ventilation.

For example, we’ve read in the Toronto Catholic School Board TCDSB Reopening Action Plan that, given school ventilation and windows ventilation is the most essential element of any HVAC system, “the Maintenance Department will proceed with modifications of vertical sliding windows as needed to increase the opening from 4 inches to 12 inches. If possible, this modification will be to the window directly opposite the classroom door to further facilitate air circulation.”

We’re interested in hearing from folks from other school boards to hear what your local school board is doing in relation to any new windows in old schools, that may currently be set to only open a few inches? This “fix” is something that could be done in fairly short order and, compared to other solutions, is relatively inexpensive. Fix Our Schools looks forward to hearing from you about what your local schools are doing about this issue! And, if you do not know, we encourage you to ask your local Principal and your local Trustee about this issue. In the opinion of Fix Our Schools, our provincial government has continued to place a low priority on the health, safety, and well-being of Ontario’s students and the adults who work in schools. However, we also encourage local school boards to be doing all they can with the money they have to make publicly funded schools as safe as possible amidst the COVID-pandemic.