Teachers in Harrisburg, PA are complaining of poor air quality in school buildings.
Harrisburg, PA school district officials are telling concerned parents that air quality tests of all the schools in the district will be scheduled "in the near future" after a report commissioned by the teachers' union showed that the ventilation in 10 of the 11 schools in the district didn't meet air quality codes. Some in the district have called the report by engineering company Siemens "self-serving" since it didn't include actual air quality testing, but teachers insist that there is an air quality problem in the schools that they have been dealing with for some time now.
At Camp Curtin Academy, for example, there is a boiler pipe exhaust pipe on the roof that empties out right near an air intake vent, causing an increased risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Teachers and students alike at this school and others in the city have been complaining of headaches and other complications related to the poor air quality, and classes on the top floor have had to be relocated to lower floors on several occasions due to the fumes.
Rich Askey, president of the teacher's union, stressed the importance of fixing this problem immediately for students' learning outcomes.
"We want this done immediately. It's people's lives we're talking about. There are a lot of studies that have shown that poor air quality affects student learning," he told the Harrisburg Patriot News.
However, district officials are not convinced by Siemens' study, since the company has a conflict of interest in that it would be handling the air quality remediation. They are planning to commission an independent review and set of air quality tests to check the study's results.
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