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I'm a teacher at a school. - We eat outside. - We have filters upgraded to MERV-13 and the fans run the entire school day. - We have windows and doors open o

by mlyle 5y ago

I'm a teacher at a school. - We eat outside. - We have filters upgraded to MERV-13 and the fans run the entire school day. - We have windows and doors open on all classrooms, except for A) a few that don't open outside, or B) when it's rainy/windy to the point it's not possible. We have small, secondary HEPA filters that we run in those circumstances. (Often, we're blaring AC or heat into a room with all doors and windows open just to get a few degrees closer to comfort). - We mask indoors, too. So far, no secondary cases attributable to spread at school. We've had frequent testing for much of the time, too, so they'd likely get detected. Now a lot of the student body is vaccinated, too, but this dates to before that.

glial 5y ago
This matches the policy at my children's school - and thankfully the outcome has been the same as well, with no community spread. These seem like reasonable and effective precautions to me.
YZF 5y ago
That's awesome but why isn't it universal?
- CivBase 5y ago
  In some places it's far too hot or cold most of the school year? Or inclement weather is common. Or students have severe alergies. Or there isn't enough space for school buildings to be designed that way. Or the local air/noise pollution is too great. It seems to me like the ability to design a school like this would be the exception, not the rule.
doubled112 5y ago
My kid's school doesn't have windows that open. It's too new for that.
- sjg007 5y ago
  Your kids school should have a good HVAC then which should run 24x7 and will have a fresh air intake which does the required number of air exchanges per hour. Add in some local air cleaners too.
- mlyle 5y ago
  Our newer buildings don't have windows that open and have interior hallways, so some rooms don't have doors to outside. They have better building ventilation and per-room standalone air filters, though. Even just a single door open makes a big difference, IMO.
  - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
    I've never attended a school that had doors to the outside from the classroom, honestly. Most, but not all, had windows that open, though.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      The difference between temperate California (why bother with the expense of indoor hallway space?) and places where it snows. :D
- aspaceman 5y ago
  Is that really a newer thing? My ancient high school had 45-degree windows (for theft and suicide prevention I imagine). Why lock it all down? Cost?
  - mlyle 5y ago
    It's a LEED rating thing. If you can rely upon windows entirely for ventilation and thermal control, that's great. Otherwise, windows that open leak more air when you don't want them to. They also let in more humid air, which in turn has a higher specific heat capacity and requires more energy to dry the air later. Their usage tends to be uneven, so you often have open windows while AC is also running elsewhere or in the same room, and this can upset air handling. So, windows that open can paradoxically increase energy consumption in larger buildings.
    - pstoll 5y ago
      We have a local school being built. This was the argument for no operable windows. Except … a pandemic! We are optimizing for the wrong thing IMO at the expense of simple practical, human driven comfort. Same reason we don’t have windows on the local trains anymore. Practically for people in classrooms at random times, being able to open a window should be an option. Only central control of when the ventilation / heat is on just fails in so many situations.
      - mlyle 5y ago
        It's an interesting tradeoff. I like having windows that will open in my classroom. But in the larger buildings with central, indoor hallways, the benefit of windows is smaller (much less outer surface area vs. volume of space) and the potential costs are higher. Aside from pandemic-proofing, the main benefit I get is from having more ventilation when I do things that don't need to be under a hood, but still produce fumes/smoke. E.g. soldering.
      - Sargos 5y ago
        If it's still being built then it likely won't start being used until sometime next year and at that point we're back to optimizing for energy usage. It's best to pick a long term metric over a short term win when dealing with a building that will last for decades.
- Eelongate 5y ago
  There's a tool for that: a brick.
  - doubled112 5y ago
    True. All windows open. Some are harder to close back up than others.
    - koilke 5y ago
      Defenestration of covid
jkhdigital 5y ago
So let me ask you: with such well-ventilated facilities, what is the marginal benefit of masking? And is this benefit worth the difficult-to-quantify but very real cost of students being unable to see the faces of their classmates?
- c0nducktr 5y ago
  > And is this benefit worth the difficult-to-quantify but very real cost of students being unable to see the faces of their classmates? I would figure the first thing needed to answer that question is defining the "difficult-to-quantify" cost, right?
- mlyle 5y ago
  > So let me ask you: with such well-ventilated facilities, what is the marginal benefit of masking? It's difficult to estimate. Of course, even with all this care, not everywhere is equally well ventilated. My room is wide open to the outside, but there are other rooms depending on central air and the room filter which may not be as well off. Trying to form policy on a room by room basis would be nutty. > And is this benefit worth the difficult-to-quantify but very real cost of students being unable to see the faces of their classmates? We do go outside quite a bit, and most students choose to not mask outside and thus see their classmates then. There's also the very real benefit of making many students-- and me, their teacher-- feel safer. IMO the biggest cost is it's slightly harder to understand each other and we have a few more misunderstandings per day.
  - anthonypasq 5y ago
    yikes, you think "feeling" safer is an adequate reason to mask?
    - mlyle 5y ago
      Yes, I do. My dad has SLL, with a ridiculous risk of mortality should he be exposed. Yes, he's fully vaccinated, but the amount of protection he can expect from the vaccine is dubious. Further bounding the risk of me getting exposed by a student (ventilation + masking) lets me both see my elderly father and continue to teach. I don't financially need to teach, and as much as I find it rewarding, I'm not willing to take a large risk of killing family members to do it.
nr2x 5y ago
To add to that - younger children are really good with mask wearing in my experience - which is a big factor compared to the teenagers who ditch the mask as soon as no authority figure is in sight...or the adults with the maturity level of teenagers.
- chmod600 5y ago
  Does weaing a mask so often have downsides? I'm not "anti-mask". I'm just wondering whether we will see studies in 10-20 years about a bunch of children with lung problems from restricted airflow or weird fibers or chemicals, or other pathogens that grew on the masks, or something we haven't thought of yet. Or who knows? Maybe kids will all have super strong lungs. Or maybe lucky ones will have stronger lungs and others will suffer. I just don't know. Anyone studying this (potential) issue?
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Who knows. But we do have large parts of the world where wearing masks during cold season is normalized, without any massive evidence of adverse effect.
    - sharken 5y ago
      Well, we also have the opposite, ie. no mask mandate for large parts of the world for many, many years. We should not have any restrictions at all for Corona as soon as it's possible. And if you compare Corona with some of the large flu seasons we've seen, then based on the hospitalizations we should abandon all restrictions now. I sincerely hope that we wake up and realize this, as this is now a huge social experiment into how restricting humans work.
    - dude187 5y ago
      Having an entire population hiding their face on a routine basis when interacting with the public is an enormous downside. Completely unacceptable, and forcing it on the _entire_ population is downright evil.
  - 5y ago
bit_logic 5y ago
I’m very concerned that the mask debate for elementary school (and especially pre-school) is not considering the potential long term negative effects. The anti-mask side uses false arguments about breathing too much CO2. And the pro-mask side uses irrelevant arguments about how plenty of adults wear masks all day with no harmful effects (nurses/doctors). But we’re talking about young kids here. Pre-school (age 2 - 4) is an especially critical time and early elementary is important too. This time is a short window in brain development when the brain is super elastic and learns many things. Much of language development isn’t just hearing and speaking, it’s also seeing the mouth movements. And this is the age when the brain learns how to recognize and display facial emotions. Is it possible by masking so much these young kids, we’re doing major damage to this learning process? Maybe the answer is yes, or maybe it’s no. But no one is even considering this question. It’s just endless stupid debates about masking that doesn’t at all consider the special circumstances of this critical time in life, this short window when so much happens.
- vwcx 5y ago
  Great. We acknowledge the importance of this developmental period. So what are the options, and which option contains a downside that is more palatable than the others? I.e. we fear the effects of total isolation of a four year old more than the risk of their stunted facial recognition practice etc etc
  - dude187 5y ago
    The risk of them getting sick is not significant. People are using their trumped up unjustified fears the media and government have whipped into them into demanding _some_ form of child abuse. The only thing they're willing to question is "which form?"
    - mlyle 5y ago
      Significant hyperbole. Elementary kids do not care one bit about wearing masks indoors. They picked up the habit quickly, don't complain, and now put the rest of us to shame. Indeed, they often don't bother (not out of fear, but just forgetting or not bothering) to remove when going outside. And, the risk is much more significant than you imply, and the risk to us who work with them is substantial. I'm looking forward to masks going away eventually for a lot of reasons (though I kinda hope they become normal for e.g. the worst month of flu season, like in many other parts of the world), but calling it abuse is just ridiculous.

by mlyle 5y ago

glial 5y ago

This matches the policy at my children's school - and thankfully the outcome has been the same as well, with no community spread. These seem like reasonable and effective precautions to me.

YZF 5y ago

That's awesome but why isn't it universal?

CivBase 5y ago
In some places it's far too hot or cold most of the school year? Or inclement weather is common. Or students have severe alergies. Or there isn't enough space for school buildings to be designed that way. Or the local air/noise pollution is too great. It seems to me like the ability to design a school like this would be the exception, not the rule.

doubled112 5y ago

My kid's school doesn't have windows that open. It's too new for that.

sjg007 5y ago
Your kids school should have a good HVAC then which should run 24x7 and will have a fresh air intake which does the required number of air exchanges per hour. Add in some local air cleaners too.
mlyle 5y ago
Our newer buildings don't have windows that open and have interior hallways, so some rooms don't have doors to outside. They have better building ventilation and per-room standalone air filters, though. Even just a single door open makes a big difference, IMO.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  I've never attended a school that had doors to the outside from the classroom, honestly. Most, but not all, had windows that open, though.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    The difference between temperate California (why bother with the expense of indoor hallway space?) and places where it snows. :D
aspaceman 5y ago
Is that really a newer thing? My ancient high school had 45-degree windows (for theft and suicide prevention I imagine). Why lock it all down? Cost?
- mlyle 5y ago
  It's a LEED rating thing. If you can rely upon windows entirely for ventilation and thermal control, that's great. Otherwise, windows that open leak more air when you don't want them to. They also let in more humid air, which in turn has a higher specific heat capacity and requires more energy to dry the air later. Their usage tends to be uneven, so you often have open windows while AC is also running elsewhere or in the same room, and this can upset air handling. So, windows that open can paradoxically increase energy consumption in larger buildings.
  - pstoll 5y ago
    We have a local school being built. This was the argument for no operable windows. Except … a pandemic! We are optimizing for the wrong thing IMO at the expense of simple practical, human driven comfort. Same reason we don’t have windows on the local trains anymore. Practically for people in classrooms at random times, being able to open a window should be an option. Only central control of when the ventilation / heat is on just fails in so many situations.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      It's an interesting tradeoff. I like having windows that will open in my classroom. But in the larger buildings with central, indoor hallways, the benefit of windows is smaller (much less outer surface area vs. volume of space) and the potential costs are higher. Aside from pandemic-proofing, the main benefit I get is from having more ventilation when I do things that don't need to be under a hood, but still produce fumes/smoke. E.g. soldering.
    - Sargos 5y ago
      If it's still being built then it likely won't start being used until sometime next year and at that point we're back to optimizing for energy usage. It's best to pick a long term metric over a short term win when dealing with a building that will last for decades.
Eelongate 5y ago
There's a tool for that: a brick.
- doubled112 5y ago
  True. All windows open. Some are harder to close back up than others.
  - koilke 5y ago
    Defenestration of covid

jkhdigital 5y ago

So let me ask you: with such well-ventilated facilities, what is the marginal benefit of masking? And is this benefit worth the difficult-to-quantify but very real cost of students being unable to see the faces of their classmates?

c0nducktr 5y ago
> And is this benefit worth the difficult-to-quantify but very real cost of students being unable to see the faces of their classmates? I would figure the first thing needed to answer that question is defining the "difficult-to-quantify" cost, right?
mlyle 5y ago
> So let me ask you: with such well-ventilated facilities, what is the marginal benefit of masking? It's difficult to estimate. Of course, even with all this care, not everywhere is equally well ventilated. My room is wide open to the outside, but there are other rooms depending on central air and the room filter which may not be as well off. Trying to form policy on a room by room basis would be nutty. > And is this benefit worth the difficult-to-quantify but very real cost of students being unable to see the faces of their classmates? We do go outside quite a bit, and most students choose to not mask outside and thus see their classmates then. There's also the very real benefit of making many students-- and me, their teacher-- feel safer. IMO the biggest cost is it's slightly harder to understand each other and we have a few more misunderstandings per day.
- anthonypasq 5y ago
  yikes, you think "feeling" safer is an adequate reason to mask?
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Yes, I do. My dad has SLL, with a ridiculous risk of mortality should he be exposed. Yes, he's fully vaccinated, but the amount of protection he can expect from the vaccine is dubious. Further bounding the risk of me getting exposed by a student (ventilation + masking) lets me both see my elderly father and continue to teach. I don't financially need to teach, and as much as I find it rewarding, I'm not willing to take a large risk of killing family members to do it.

nr2x 5y ago

To add to that - younger children are really good with mask wearing in my experience - which is a big factor compared to the teenagers who ditch the mask as soon as no authority figure is in sight...or the adults with the maturity level of teenagers.

chmod600 5y ago
Does weaing a mask so often have downsides? I'm not "anti-mask". I'm just wondering whether we will see studies in 10-20 years about a bunch of children with lung problems from restricted airflow or weird fibers or chemicals, or other pathogens that grew on the masks, or something we haven't thought of yet. Or who knows? Maybe kids will all have super strong lungs. Or maybe lucky ones will have stronger lungs and others will suffer. I just don't know. Anyone studying this (potential) issue?
- mlyle 5y ago
  Who knows. But we do have large parts of the world where wearing masks during cold season is normalized, without any massive evidence of adverse effect.
  - sharken 5y ago
    Well, we also have the opposite, ie. no mask mandate for large parts of the world for many, many years. We should not have any restrictions at all for Corona as soon as it's possible. And if you compare Corona with some of the large flu seasons we've seen, then based on the hospitalizations we should abandon all restrictions now. I sincerely hope that we wake up and realize this, as this is now a huge social experiment into how restricting humans work.
  - dude187 5y ago
    Having an entire population hiding their face on a routine basis when interacting with the public is an enormous downside. Completely unacceptable, and forcing it on the _entire_ population is downright evil.
- 5y ago

bit_logic 5y ago

I’m very concerned that the mask debate for elementary school (and especially pre-school) is not considering the potential long term negative effects. The anti-mask side uses false arguments about breathing too much CO2. And the pro-mask side uses irrelevant arguments about how plenty of adults wear masks all day with no harmful effects (nurses/doctors). But we’re talking about young kids here. Pre-school (age 2 - 4) is an especially critical time and early elementary is important too. This time is a short window in brain development when the brain is super elastic and learns many things. Much of language development isn’t just hearing and speaking, it’s also seeing the mouth movements. And this is the age when the brain learns how to recognize and display facial emotions. Is it possible by masking so much these young kids, we’re doing major damage to this learning process? Maybe the answer is yes, or maybe it’s no. But no one is even considering this question. It’s just endless stupid debates about masking that doesn’t at all consider the special circumstances of this critical time in life, this short window when so much happens.

vwcx 5y ago
Great. We acknowledge the importance of this developmental period. So what are the options, and which option contains a downside that is more palatable than the others? I.e. we fear the effects of total isolation of a four year old more than the risk of their stunted facial recognition practice etc etc
- dude187 5y ago
  The risk of them getting sick is not significant. People are using their trumped up unjustified fears the media and government have whipped into them into demanding _some_ form of child abuse. The only thing they're willing to question is "which form?"
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Significant hyperbole. Elementary kids do not care one bit about wearing masks indoors. They picked up the habit quickly, don't complain, and now put the rest of us to shame. Indeed, they often don't bother (not out of fear, but just forgetting or not bothering) to remove when going outside. And, the risk is much more significant than you imply, and the risk to us who work with them is substantial. I'm looking forward to masks going away eventually for a lot of reasons (though I kinda hope they become normal for e.g. the worst month of flu season, like in many other parts of the world), but calling it abuse is just ridiculous.