The Middle School Air Quality—

District Awaits

OSHA Report

By John Voket

As Newtown school officials await the outcome of a Conn-OSHA survey of air quality at the middle school that was requested in mid-February by the district, another local elected official and educator has reported that carbon dioxide levels that were marginalized by administrators and the school board chair have proven to negatively affect academic performance and absenteeism.

Following her testimony in Hartford before a legislative committee weighing whether to provide extensive subsidies for schools looking to repair or replace HVAC systems, Karen Pierce appeared in back-to-back meetings of the Board of Selectmen Monday, and the Legislative Council’s Finance Committee Tuesday.

Ms Pierce, who is an IPN representative on the Edmond Town Hall Board of Managers, and a longtime educator specializing in special education, is proposing that town officials fast-track bonding for the Newtown Middle School’s HVAC renovation into next year’s capital spending plan.

She pitched the idea after verifying details of two studies that showed either an increase in absenteeism or a drop in academic performance in schools where the CO2 concentrations are as low as 1,000 parts per million (ppm). A district vendor, EnviroScience Consultants, Inc, tested three of six areas in the middle school on November 1, 2001, and reported several “action levels” of carbon dioxide.

Updated tests taken by a new consultant earlier this year — just days after the 2001 middle school air quality data was made public for the first time — reported spot increases in CO2 levels between the 2001 and 2010 reports in the middle school. Updated levels of CO2 in the lower floor A-wing ranged as high as 1,890 ppm; as high as 1,913 in the B-wing; and from a range of 700–2,200 ppm in the 2001 report, to a range of 1,460–3,375 in the C-wing earlier this year.

These updated spot results generated an additional, extended period of air testing, as well as a call to the Connecticut Department of Labor, whose state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Conn-OSHA) unit responded to the school to conduct its own air quality testing.

A spokesperson at the labor department said this week that the state results are expected to be completed and made public “soon.” The expanded air tests that were conducted by Brooks Environmental Consulting after the district changed its practice of operating the school’s air exchange systems before and after class sessions continued to show all areas of the building except the lower floor C-wing having CO2 levels ranging above 1,000 ppm.

The highest levels in the district’s latest report produced by Brooks ranged up to 2,532 ppm in the upper floor A-wing, and 2,461 in the upper C-wing.

Following the publication of the district’s air quality findings from 2001, which came during a finance board meeting in January, Superintendent Janet Robinson said, “We don’t like to see anything over 1,000 ppm, but the danger level as I understand it would have to be in excess of 5,000 [ppm].”

In a follow-up subsequent to the initial 2010 findings, Dr Robinson told The Bee that “these numbers are of concern as we want our students to be at peak attentiveness in school. Although they are not hitting the 5,000 number, they are still not desirable and plans need to encompass making certain that there is optimal air quality in all of our schools.”

School board Chair Lillian Bittman also noted during the finance board’s inquiry that she understood the industrial OSHA standard for CO2 triggering an air quality emergency would be in excess of 5,000 ppm. But this week, Ms Pierce appeared with previously elusive data that had particular relevance because it related specifically to CO2 levels in schools versus in industrial or commercial applications.

She told the Board of Selectmen Monday that a 2003 study in 14 schools in Idaho and Washington state, surveying K–sixth graders in 409 traditional classrooms and 25 portable classrooms showed a 1,000 ppm increase in CO2 was associated with a 10–20 percent increase in student absence.

Ms Pierce was more concerned, however, in presenting outcomes of a 2008 study from the UK, which conducted three computerized assessment standards among fifth graders before and after the introduction of indoor air ventilation in classrooms at eight schools. She cited the survey’s finding of a three percent increase in student reaction times, an eight percent increase in picture recall, and a 15 percent increase in word recognition.

“As an educator, I can tell you that the 15 percent improvement in word recognition is a remarkable increase,” Ms Pierce told the selectmen.

While the CIP had already been passed by the selectmen and the Board of Finance, with the middle school HVAC renovation pushed out beyond the plan’s five-year scope, Ms Pierce hoped the data she presented would spur the council to find a way to move that HVAC renovation into the 2010-2011 capital plan. But following her presentation to the council’s Finance Committee, Chairman Ben Spragg said it was unlikely that the projected costs for such a project could fit into the 2010 CIP.