The January 2022 Addendum from the government provides additional prevention measures that schools must implement. In terms of ventilation, it asks schools with recycled/recirculated air systems if they have upgraded their current filters to MERV 13 where possible or have identified mitigation efforts. The STA is tackling the issues on a few fronts.
- We are asking the District for specifics around the spending of the money provided by the government for HVAC upgrades.
- Another step we are taking is asking health and safety reps to ask their school health and safety committee to make recommendations to their administration to purchase portable HEPA filters to bring classrooms up to MERV-13 equivalent levels.
- Where the administration has responded that they are not following this recommendation, some of those reps have since contacted WorkSafeBC and they have become involved. We expect a report from WorkSafeBC soon.