The Leyden High School student trustees sounded off at the August 19th Board meeting. Read the story at the link below:

There are numerous strategies that need to be employed beyond “just wearing your mask” by Leyden School District 212.

Ask questions when you attend the Leyden High School “Open House” and require that the District gives you answers about the health and safety of your children who are attending the classes in the building

The parents need to attend board meetings and ask the questions and require honest answers.

Now questions are surfacing whether or not Leyden SD 212 Administrators have taken all of the necessary steps to ensure the health of the students attending. With the over crowded buses there has been little to no effort for proper air flow on the buses.

Information has now surfaced that many of the older sections of East and West Leyden have little to no proper air flow in the over crowded hallways during the class changes.

At the same SD 212 Board meeting that the student trustees raised the out cry regarding the issues; the Board adopted life safety amendments for over the next 10 years to up grade the school district air handling and ventilation systems in the older sections of the buildings, yet the District spent 10’s of millions of dollars in building additions to make the buildings look like the “Taj Mahal” but failed to upgrade the air handling systems of the buildings which even before Covid-19 directly impact the health of the children and the staff.

In 2018, I pursued the District to up grade some of the ventilation in the East side of East Leyden; this was done grudgingly at a cost of $6 million dollars and I was portrayed as the bad guy by Administrators of the District. This upgrade was done in the summer of 2019; yet instead of pursuing the complete upgrade of the ventilation and air handling systems of East Leyden, they proceeded to sink millions of dollars into artificial track and artificial turf, and stadium seating for soccer and football fields during the height of the pandemic.

The District has failed to address the ventilation systems at West Leyden when they were plotting the massive building projects costing millions of dollars; what did they do at West Leyden this summer was to pay 10’s of thousands of dollars to repair and restore mosaics in the brick work.

The District needs to now seek emergency measures to improve the air quality and air handling in the buildings for a more safe and effective way of providing high quality air turnover to protect the students.

“Just wearing a mask” is not the answer. The Administration knows better and is hiding their “head in the sand”. If the cases of Covid-19 continues to rise at SD 212 we need to question whether the Administration is doing all they can to protect the students and faculty.

Where is the faculty union ? The CPS Teacher’s union demanded and got ventilation upgrades in CPS schools.

Complaints are surfacing that students don’t have access to drinking water and are coming home quite thirsty.

The District is not employing many of the “best practices” of the CDC as outlined below.

Ventilation is one component of maintaining healthy environments, and is an important COVID-19 prevention strategy for schools and childcare programs. Wearing a well-fitting, multi-layer mask helps prevent virus particles from entering the air or being breathed in by the person wearing a mask. Good ventilation is another step that can reduce the number of virus particles in the air. Along with other preventive actions, ventilation can reduce the likelihood of spreading disease. Below are ways you can improve ventilation in your school or childcare program, whether in a large building or in a home:

Bring in as much outdoor air as possible.

• If safe to do so, open windows and doors. Even just cracking open a window or door helps increase outdoor airflow, which helps reduce the potential concentration of virus particles in the air. If it gets too cold or hot, adjust the thermostat. Do not open windows or doors if doing so poses a safety or health risk (such as falling, exposure to extreme temperatures, or triggering asthma symptoms).
• Use child-safe fans to increase the effectiveness of open windows. Safely secure fans in a window to blow potentially contaminated air out and pull new air in through other open windows and doors.
• Consider having activities, classes, or lunches outdoors when circumstances allow.

Ensure Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) settings are maximizing ventilation.

• Make sure your ventilation systems are serviced and meeting code requirements. They should provide acceptable indoor air quality, as defined by ASHRAE Standard 62.1external icon, for the current occupancy level for each space.* Home-based childcare programs should meet requirements established by their state and local regulatory authorities.
• Set HVAC systems to bring in as much outdoor air as your system will safely allow. Reduce or eliminate HVAC air recirculation, when practical and with expert HVAC consultation.*
• Increase the HVAC system’s total airflow supply to occupied spaces when you can. More air flow encourages air mixing and ensures any recirculated air passes through the filter more frequently.
• Disable demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) controls that reduce air supply based on occupancy or temperature. This way the air supply will remain constant throughout the day.
• For simple HVAC systems controlled by a thermostat, setting the fan control switch from “Auto” to “On” will ensure the HVAC system provides continuous air filtration and distribution.
• Consider running the HVAC system at maximum outside airflow for 2 hours before and after the building is occupied to refresh air before arrival and remove remaining particles at the end of the day.

Open windows in transportation vehicles.Ventilation is important on buses and vans servicing schools and childcare programs, along with other strategies such as mask use for people over 2 years old and physical distancing.

Keep vehicle windows open when it does not create a safety or health hazard. Having more windows open is more helpful, but even just cracking a few windows open is better than keeping all windows closed.