Fresno Unified should be the nation’s leader for air quality in classrooms. It isn’t
Fresno has some of the nation’s worst air quality, and it has been that way for decades. The geography of the San Joaquin Valley — big mountain ranges on either side — plus the activities involved in farming — miles of plowed dirt plus tons of farming chemicals plus hordes of dairy cows and what they emit — makes for foul air trapped in a basin.
So, if ever there should be a school district that has the nation’s best indoor-classroom air quality, to make up for the bad stuff outside, it must be Fresno Unified. Picture The New York Times and network television traveling to Fresno to report on the amazing purity inside classrooms — islands of healthy air in a basin of toxins.
Unfortunately, that has not happened.
The purity of the air inside Fresno Unified School District’s 4,000 classrooms came into new focus in recent days, when The Bee reported how the district was not availing itself of the best purifiers on the market.
The context was the COVID pandemic, and how the school districts in Clovis and Sanger have used federal funding to buy HEPA air filters. Those are devices that remove particulates from the air, fast and many times within an hour of use. HEPA stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air.
Clovis Unified students sit in classrooms in which the HEPA purifiers clean the air four times an hour — removing 99.98% of particulates.
By contrast, Fresno Unified chose to put some of its federal pandemic monies into purchases of much smaller, less fast, less powerful purifiers that nonetheless can kill viruses, like COVID. While tough on viruses, the machines are less robust, and take two hours to filter the air in one classroom.
Teachers’ concerns
The differences are not lost on Fresno Unified teachers.
“Proper air filtration was a requirement to start face-to-face (classes) last year and it still hasn’t been done,” Tamara Norris, who teaches at Roosevelt High School, told Bee freelance reporter Greg Weaver. “The amount of sarcastic hilarity that this (plug-in) device is supposed to filter air for all of us would be amazing, if it weren’t so grossly negligent.”
Another teacher, who requested anonymity over fears of retaliation if she went on the record, called the “advanced oxidation cell technology” devices used by Fresno Unified “a glorified Glade plug-in.”
The purifiers picked by Fresno Unified carry the brand name RestorAir, and among its benefits are filtering out spicy food odors, like curry. Nothing in the manufacturer’s advertisement references use in a classroom.
Getting better air
Why did Fresno Unified go with RestorAir? That was top pick of members of the Council of Great City Schools — the nation’s 76 largest districts, including Fresno.
Superintendent Bob Nelson understands the current criticism, and told The Bee Editorial Board in an interview that HEPA purifiers were ordered after “labor,” meaning the Fresno Teachers Association, expressed concerns about the need for them.
HEPA filters have now been delivered and will be installed in classrooms in coming weeks. They will be used along with the RestorAir units as a kind of one-two punch of purifying, Nelson said.
Long-term, the district is underway with revamping the central air systems at all campuses. Once completed, the HVAC upgrades will filter air to a hospital-like quality, he explained.
As for why Fresno Unified would not have had more focus on air quality until now, Nelson was at a bit of a loss. He pointed out that campuses were built for years without air conditioning. It was only within recent years that AC became standard across the district.
Fresno Unified does a good job of meeting other basic needs of students. For example, all children can get free breakfast and lunch at their schools.
Going forward, the air they breathe inside classrooms will get healthier as well. It’s just too bad, and rather incomprehensible, that Fresno Unified has not achieved top-notch air quality already.
This story was originally published February 18, 2022 at 5:00 AM.