NC parents are buying air purifiers for schools. Are they worth the cost to fight COVID?
Parents are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars out of their own pockets to buy air purifiers for their children’s classrooms because the Wake County school system will not do so.
School PTAs across across the county are raising money to buy air filtration systems for individual classrooms and cafeterias. The aim is to reduce the risk of COVID-19 virus transmission.
Some think Wake — North Carolina’s largest school system — should be installing the air purifiers so that there will be equitable distribution and less-affluent schools won’t be at a disadvantage.
“There are parents that are not going to be able to provide funds to do this,” Rebecca Schuster, a parent at Buckhorn Creek Elementary School in Holly Springs, said in an interview. “There are schools that are not going to be able to afford this. What happens to those kids?
“It’s further opening up that socioeconomic divide, which has been highlighted through this whole pandemic and has been getting worse.”
Buckhorn Creek Elementary is asking parents to help chip in to buy air purifiers for classrooms.
But should the school system be paying for the purifiers itself? Leaders say they are funding other initiatives to fight COVID-19 that are more pressing.
“It is wonderful that PTAs want to support,” Superintendent Cathy Moore said at last week’s school board. “But the district has an obligation to provide schools what they need to implement the recommendations that we are making. And the district is doing that.”
For example, Wake is opting for COVID mitigation methods such as buying picnic tables so students can eat outdoors instead of purchasing air purifiers for individual classrooms.
Schools look to improve air quality
Schools across the nation rushed to install new air purification devices to try to combat COVID-19. Every New York City public school classroom is supposed to have two air purifiers this school year.
A focus has been on getting HEPA (high-efficiency particulate absorbing) filters to try to improve the ventilation.
Last school year, Wake County school system installed MERV-13 air filters in the HVAC units at each school. But the district is only providing individual air purification units to special-needs classrooms where students are unable to wear face masks.
The reason that Wake County hasn’t provided air purifiers in every classroom is the ABC Science Collaborative, a group formed by Duke University to advise schools on COVID issues.
“There are no scientific data to support that the use of HEPA filters and ventilation work to prevent spread of COVID-19 when everyone is masking,” the ABC Collaborative says on its website. “To date, interventions around indoor ventilation (i.e. opening windows) have not been shown to be helpful to prevent the transmission of the virus if people are masking.
“Air exchange, purifiers, or filters may help minimally, but have not been shown to help if people are masked.”
Parents buy air purifiers for schools
While Wake isn’t providing them, the district set minimum requirements such as not allowing schools to use homemade purifiers. Wake also suggested recommended criteria on units but is leaving it up to principals to decide what to accept.
Some schools are requiring less expensive $300 units. Others are only accepting units costing more than $600.
Despite Wake’s hesitation, some parents say the air purifiers are worth the cost.
Kimberly Friese Matsune spent more than $2,000 to get three classroom air purifiers for Weatherstone Elementary School in Cary. She said the purifiers were welcomed by her children’s teachers and provide her and her immuno-compromised children with peace of mind.
“As a parent, I will take any layer they can give me to keep my children safe,” Friese Matsune said in an interview. “It may not be as effective as some want, but at least they have some protection.”
Christina Jones has purchased air purifiers for her daughters’ classrooms at Brier Creek Elementary School in Raleigh.
“This helps make it palatable for me to send them to in-person school,” Jones said in interview. “I”m grateful that they’re allowing it.”
Jones has asked the Raleigh City Council to help provide money for air purifiers for schools.
Adriana de Souza e Silva has organized a GoFundMe page to try to raise $15,000 to purchase air purifiers for every classroom and the common areas at Penny Road Elementary in Cary. She thinks the combination of proper masking and the HEPA filters in classrooms could reduce the viral risk from COVID by more than 90%.
“The money should come from the district,” de Souza e Silva said in an interview. “They should give it to the schools for this purpose. We need to act now because COVID cases are high and we don’t want our kids to become infected.”
Picnic tables over air purifiers
So many parents have asked Wake to buy air purifiers that school board member Chris Heagarty asked Dr. Danny Benjamin, co-director of the ABC Science Collaborative, to give his opinion at last week’s board meeting.
“It’s a very uncertain benefit,” Benjamin answered. “Schools have been successful without it to date, and it’s very costly.”
Benjamin suggested instead continuing to require masking and to facilitate outdoor eating, which he noted will not cost millions of taxpayers dollars.
Wake purchased 270 picnic tables for outdoor dining back in the spring and is looking to buy more tables, as well as tents, for schools to use. Moore, the superintendent, said they’re taking orders for tables now from schools.
“We need to make sure that every school has access to the things that we’re asking to do, the supplies that are needed to implement the best practices,” Moore said. “We have funds available.”
Some parents though say those funds, which includes millions of dollars in unspent federal COVID relief aid, should go toward purchasing air purification systems, too. They also say the state should kick in funds as well to help schools to improve classroom air quality.
“If there’s anything the county can do to lift the weight off their parents, who drop off their kids at school every day and hope they come home healthy, that would really be a giant relief,” said Friese Matsune.
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 4:55 PM with the headline "NC parents are buying air purifiers for schools. Are they worth the cost to fight COVID?."
