SHARON, MASS. (WHDH) - The coronavirus emergency is causing a wave of air filter fears with teachers in several communities voicing their concerns about ventilation problems in schools.
With just a week to go before students are due back in the classroom, Sharon educators are refusing to return to in-person teaching while Superintendent Dr. Victoria L. Greer says the district has brought in crews to fix any identified ventilation issues.
The district has been at odds for about three weeks over the best way to educate students and stay safe this fall. The teachers’ union is pushing to go fully remote for the time being while the district has approved a hybrid model.
“They want us to get comfortable in sick buildings,” Sharon Teachers Association President Bernadette Murphy said. “We don’t believe that that should happen.”
This impasse has now been further compounded by a recently completed ventilation assessment of the town’s five public schools which uncovered 187 issues with the system.
“I’m sure some things will be fixed, but they can’t ensure everything that needs to be fixed will be fixed,” Murphy said.
Superintendent Greer said their systems meet building code standards but that the repairs are well underway. Those repairs costing upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“It looks like there’s a lot of things, but some of them are not necessarily complicated matters,” she said. “They can be rectified easily.”
In order to combat and control the virus, the CDC recommends schools ensure their ventilation systems are working properly and that they increase the circulation of outdoor air by opening windows and doors.
This new report – the latest sticking point for teachers in Sharon who said they don’t feel safe returning to the classroom.
“What the study showed is the air circulation is now adequate to deal with a virus like COVID-19,” Murphy said.
Greer said close to 80 percent of the repairs have already been made.
“We got teams working overtime – nights and weekends. We believe we will be ready by next Monday,” she said.
In the meantime, the Boston Teachers’ Union is also voicing their concerns about air quality where they claim only 25 percent of school buildings have HVAC systems and many classrooms do not have windows.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure our facilities are safe for everyone to come back,” President Jessica Tang said. “We know that parents want our students back, we want to be back too but again the priority has got to be health and safety and when our facilities are not in the condition, they need to be for our students to come back, then we have to be looking at alternatives.”
In response to these comments, a spokesperson for Boston Public Schools told 7NEWS they are working to ensure appropriate air circulation for all school buildings, adding: “BPS has 35 buildings with HVAC systems, which were all recently serviced, with all filters replaced. For the remaining buildings, we have focused on ensuring at least one window per classroom is able to open for proper ventilation in alignment with state guidance.”
Some parents said that despite this, they are still worried about their child’s safety.
Vivian Kargbo whose daughter attends John D O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science said, “I think I have tremendous concerns. The concerns are endless.”
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