Received my September/October 2011 copy of Principal yesterday. One of the articles "A Breath of Fresh Air" by Rachel Belew was extremely interesting. It stated in the article that schools with poor indoor air quality experience increased absenteeism (students and staff), decreased student concentration and productivity, and lower student test scores. The greatest offender of air quality is found in the janitor's closet--cleaning products used to disinfect and deodorize schools can emit extremely high levels of potentially harmful chemicals.
The author went on to give 10 principles that would help improve the air quality of a school:
- Institute a regular green cleaning maintenance and training for administrators, teachers, and staff as well as janitors.
- Require that walk-off mats be installed in front of every school entrance. They need to be at least 16-18 feet to allow room for about six footsteps.
- Advise janitorial staff and teachers to avoid cleaning products with added fragrances.
- Reserve cleaning activities for after-school hours when the building is unoccupied and keep all interior doors open after cleaning.
- Avoid running the air conditioning system while the windows are open.
- Instruct teachers to avoid blocking the air returns in their classrooms with furniture or supplies.
- Instruct your facility manager to install the highest rated MERV (Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value) air filter.
- Have your facility manager make sure that all indoor air intakes are located away from potential pollution sources such as idling vehicles.
- Instruct your facility manager to keep relative humidity in the school below 65 percent.
- Consider TAB (testing and balancing) commissioning for your new or renovated school.
Because no other feature of a school single-handedly touches so many critical issues as indoor air quality does we want to make sure we keep all these things in mind as we starting building Esperanza.
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