Why Air Quality Monitoring in Schools is So Vital

Recent scientific studies show that the air inside our schools, homes, offices and other buildings can be of worse quality than our outdoor air. Other studies reveal that people are spending more of their time indoors than in previous decades. This means that our health may be compromised by our exposure to indoor air pollution even more than to outdoor pollution. Since our children and youth spend much of their time indoors at school. And since indoor air quality can be so dangerous to our health, we have lots of good reasons to discover how to keep our indoor air quality in schools as safe and clean as we possibly can.

Growing awareness of the need for optimal air quality in schools has led to legislation in some U.S. cities to ensure proper ventilation in all schools in order to benefit student and employee health, safety and learning. One thing that school districts can do to proactively improve air quality right away is to commit to designing an air quality strategy that will ensure the wellbeing of their staff and students.

With new CDC guidelines concerned with proper ventilation in schools getting instituted recently, to minimize the spread of Covid-19, schools have been opening windows to create good airflow. The drawback for schools in cities with high levels of particulate matter (PM) in the air, is this increases the risk of outdoor air pollutants entering classrooms. The best solution for these schools is to invest in continuous air quality monitoring for all contaminants including viruses.

Student learning can be impacted by temperatures that are too high or too low, by high levels of carbon dioxide, by chemicals in the air from cleaning products or local industries, wildfire smoke, or any number of other pollutants. Since we do not know what students are breathing in unless we test the air for these and other potential pollutants, it is very important to begin with indoor air quality testing to establish a baseline from which to move forward.

The health and learning of our students must be our first priority in all aspects of schooling. Ensuring optimum indoor air quality in schools seems like a no-brainer, but it has become a bigger problem than most anticipated for many school districts, their students and staff. Maximizing all of the benefits of clean air in our schools and classrooms is an essential task for many school administrators throughout the country.

With so much emphasis on meeting standardized test scores, raising grades, graduation rates, early literacy rates and providing proper nutrition for our students, we must also ensure that they are breathing safe and high quality air.

After testing the air to establish a baseline of what pollutants are present and at what levels, an overall plan for ongoing improvement must be brainstormed and created. This plan must first remove any harmful pollutants and their source(s), determine what temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels are ideal and make a step-by-step plan to remove pollutants, maintain “ideal learning” air quality conditions in all schools and develop a plan for ongoing air quality monitoring in schools in your jurisdiction.

By reliably monitoring air quality, especially carbon dioxide levels, temperature and airborne chemicals in schools, we will create an ideal learning environment that lowers the risk of common problems like asthma, the spread of colds and viruses and reduces other pulmonary issues. When these conditions are met we will also optimize the learning potential of our students and create the best possible environment for learning, growth and future success.

Pursuing all of the aspects of how to test air quality for schools and districts is time consuming and difficult work. This is where an air quality testing laboratory like Torrent Laboratory can be a lifesaver for time-strapped and budget-constrained school districts. Torrent has the most impeccable record of quality service and testing results in the industry. Our customer support is timely, efficient, friendly and works with you to explain the processes, ensure the very best testing results and work through potential solutions when problems are found. In these ways our technical support is unrivaled in its professionalism and expertise.  

Torrent provides your school or district with the most advanced capabilities in the region. As a full-service lab we offer a host of advantages including: 

• Highest certifications 
• Fastest possible TAT in the industry
• Unrivaled technical and customer support
• Unparalleled on-time performance
• Impeccable quality 
• Competitive pricing 
• Convenient geographic location

For these and many other reasons you can trust Torrent to provide your district and schools with the premier indoor air quality testing and monitoring in California and Hawaii.