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Real-time looks at the air quality in pretty much every single BPS classroom
By adamg on Sat, 08/26/2023 - 10:34am
Boston Public Schools Indoor Air Quality provides hourly stats from more than 4,400 sensors in individual BPS classrooms and offices on a variety of ventilation-related readings: Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulates, humidity and temperature.
For example, at 10:11 this morning, classroom 407A at the Lyndon School in West Roxbury had "typical" readings for everything but temperature, which at 78.6 degrees, was recorded as "high."
In addition to individual classroom readings (both hourly and monthly), you can also get a report on a school's overall readings. On the initial landing page, which shows a map on which you can drill down to specific schools (or click on the upper-right "hamburger" menu to search by school name), you can also filter schools by whether they have air conditioning or rely on windows for cooling and ventilation - as well as by specific data types, for example, you could see at a glance where the hot classrooms are in Boston.
BPS set up the monitoring system and online dashboard with SGS Galson, an East Syracuse, NY industrial-hygiene company. You can probably guess what led BPS to hire the company and set up a network to monitor classroom ventilation last year.
More details on BPS indoor air monitoring.
Via Maggie Maybe.
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Comments
What did this cost the City?
And what did this accomplish? Temperature comfort is subjective, so if little Joey complains he was too cold at 12:30 pm you can say he was lying?
The issue isn't whether Little Joey needs a sweater
Or, in some cases, needs short-sleeve shirts (because sometimes inefficient heating systems mean some classrooms swelter).
The issue is to identify and monitor classrooms where air is just sitting there and not circulating, in an era when that is suddenly more important because of the way certain viruses spread, in a city that has a large number of ancient school buildings.
This is to satisfy the union
It’s misguided when only 34% of Boston students were at or above a proficient reading level.
When was the last time an elementary school was built in Boston? Excluding charter schools.
You know school districts can do multiple things, right?
Also, how much do you think this cost to set up vs the cost of building a new elementary school?
News flash
Crappy indoor air quality also leads to lower productivity in office buildings. I suspect schools even more so.
And having actual data means you can measure which mitigation measures work.
carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide levels are a useful proxy for ventilation, which, as Adam notes, is relevant to the concentration of airborne viruses, including (but not limited to) covid.
Also, people don't concentrate as well when there's a lot of carbon dioxide in the air they're breathing. Students are in school to learn, but it seems as though someone will turn up to argue against anything that might help them do so.
Is Phase 2 of this project?
The monitoring of paper towels, toilet paper and feminine hygiene products in each student and staff bathroom?
Indoor air quality is real
Indoor air quality is real.
My kids, for a school science project, surveyed their fellow students, asking them to rate classroom comfort on various measures, such as how sleepy they felt in various classes and how hard a time they had paying attention. Completely independently, they sampled the classroom air, and found a pretty much picture-perfect correlation between CO2 levels and reported drowsiness / discomfort.
Not disputing that at all ...
Of equal importance is access to basic personal hygiene items
How about
Schools without lead pipes. Maybe books from this decade?
Both can exist…
You can say it’s vital to have TP, pads, soap and also want the air staff and students breathe to be good quality. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
Why are you complaining that
Why are you complaining that they've done one thing that you agree is valuable before another?
What complaint..
Exactly are you inquiring about? There was no complaint
...
*Menstrual products or period products
They are needed by people of various genders, and there is nothing unhygienic or unsanitary about having periods.
Totally valid
And thank you
Physical safety can't be monitored but air quality can
It's offensive BPS can monitor air quality so accurately but they aren't transparent about the number of bullying, assaults and safety issues ! WTF
Seriously?
You don't think that even BPS can't do more than one thing at a time?
They REFUSE to address school safety
And it's one the top reasons parents are pulling their kids out of BPS so fast.
I invite you to attend one of our weekly BostonSOS zoom calls Tuesday nights at 7. Check out www.Bostonsos.com. teachers can't talk about all the violence happening in BPS schools. There are guns and weapons being brought onto school property at an alarming rate. Principals aren't reporting it because they get penalized if they do !
So it's great they are addressing one item of concern, but sucks thet won't adddress safety. Much of the time kids that are bullied end up needing a safety transfer as the kids causing the problem continue to act up.
No. BPS
Is a #%#% hair away from state receivership. Busing will again be a disaster for the first few weeks.
Class assigned will be a nightmare and I’m sure they’ll fail when it comes communicating such.
BPS CAN NOT walk and chew gum and has proven this time and time again.
Code Snipet
if (problem == "1") { comment = "Complain about Thing #2"; }
elseif (problem == "2") { comment = "Complain about Thing #1"; }
else { comment = "Complain about Thing #3"; }
You forgot the RUN and GOTO statements and the line numbers
Oh, wait, we've moved beyond BASIC, haven't we?
Hey man, there were versions
Hey man, there were versions of BASIC that didn't require line numbers!
Glad I never had to learn BASIC!
FORTRAN didn't require line numbers. Good thing when some of our punch card decks were 12" thick or more.
I love this part of the thread!
n/t
That's why you take a black
That's why you take a black marker and draw a diagonal slash across the top of the deck. :)
So, there's this whole pandemic thing
which has been in the news recently. Not sure if you heard. Turns out the virus is spread via aerosols, and ventilation is a great way of counteracting that. But a lot of the schools have not-great ventilation; measuring CO2 as a proxy is a good way of figuring out where you need better ventilation.
It's easy, straightforward, and (one would think) non-controversial, with basically no downsides other than costing something. You can also use filters, but either one is a huge help.
Bullying and assault on the other hand are social problems, with a great amount of disagreement about the right solutions. It's harder to make progress on those.
Does that help?
Lack of Reporting on school safety is my issue
I understand why ventilation is important. School safety isn't accurately reported on at all, which is my issue with BPS as that's the first step to addressing safety!
My apologies
I misread the thread and didn't realize you just meant the reporting part.
Public Stats
The fact they are collecting this data is awesome. The fact they are making it public and real-time could be counterproductive.
Ideally, you want parents who care about their kid's education without trying to micromanage everything about the school.
Parents should get involved when classroom's environmental levels become dangerous but tell their kids to suck it up when the classroom is uncomfortable (too hot, cold, etc) but not to the point of putting people in danger.
It's that way with books and curriculum too. You want parents who take an interest in their kids learning about various topics without second guessing the teacher's lesson plans and book selection.
The kids suck it up all day,
The kids suck it up all day, bathrooms with leaky toilets, paint or asbestos chipping from radiators, wallpaper peeling, allergy-inducing carpeting. The temperature in the classroom is an important factor on students being able to focus and participate properly. Students used to pass out from the heat before they installed the window units. The boilers are still an issue in many buildings: delivering blistering amounts of heat on some sides and none at all on others. I’m fine with parents being able to see that their kid’s classroom is 55 degrees in the winter.
Fair enough
.
Maybe highly educated
Maybe highly educated researchers can do the testing, but it really boils down to who you actually end up doing the work labor when repairing or replacing what the wizards found in their testing.