Editorial Opinion
Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
As Raton prepares to go back to school on a hybrid model the school board will have to consider a multitude of factors at their February 15, 2021 meeting including air quality, teacher vaccinations and how many students will actually return to in person class.
The current plan proposed by the New Mexico Public Education Department indicates that each teacher will be restricted to a maximum of nine students in the classroom, a nine to one ratio. These students will be called a cohort that will stay together all day long in one classroom with social distancing. No breaks outside the classroom except restroom breaks, no mingling with other students and meals will be served in the classroom.
Students will then have classes with other teachers via zoom meeting. Nine students in one classroom talking or listening to another teacher and the teacher in that classroom teaching other students in other rooms at the same time will create a very chaotic environment to say the least. This however depends on how many students actually decide to return to the classroom.
As of Friday February 5, the number of students returning is unknown as parents and students change their mind on what to do. The current plan is for a number of students to attend school on Monday and Tuesday with another group attending on Wednesday and Thursday. If the number is small enough, which is the initial indication, any given teacher will only have students on Monday and Tuesday or on the Wednesday Thursday track. Teachers will then have to contend with online students during the week as well.
How many teachers will get the vaccine? At this point Clayton Schools have managed to get all their teachers pushed to the head of the line and get them vaccinated at least those who wanted to. They will return to school next week. Raton only has three teachers vaccinated at this time with a number indicating they may not get the vaccine. Some teachers have indicated they do not want to return to in person teaching until they have both doses. If they were vaccinated today three weeks for the second dose and then another 10 days would put them into March before returning to the classroom. Then how many teachers will return at all opting to do online teaching only. This will create issues for the school board on what to do. Dr. Christopher Bonn, Raton Superintendent, reported earlier that there has to be a teacher in the classroom in order to have students in the classroom.
Parents are worried about teachers not being vaccinated and bringing the virus to school, but what about students being asymptomatic and carrying the virus to the teachers? Students under 18 cannot be vaccinated. Look around town quite often kids are playing basketball on the open-air courts. Kids are congregating on the streets with their friends. Why would they want to go to school and be confined to a single classroom for eight hours?
Air quality is an issue that the school will be addressing with air purifying filtration systems. Raton school buildings are heated with a boiler system which doesn’t exchange air in the building. So, in order to clean the air, the state has pushed an air filtration system on the schools. NMPED chose a single vendor to provide the systems for all the schools in the state that required them. The filtration systems are portable and how they will be used at this time is still unknown. If they are placed in the classroom and pull air in and exhaust the air back into the room, are we really accomplishing anything? The type of filtration is also unknown at this time however it will take a special HEPA filter or other specialized filter to capture particles as small as the virus.
Each room at the high school is about 20x20x8 give or take. If my math is correct that is 3200 cubic feet of space. If the filtration system can push one cubic foot of air through the system every 10 seconds it will take about eight hours to clean the volume of air in the room that is if it can get all the air in the room and not recycle a small amount of the room’s air where it sits. Are the filters 100% effective? Possibly or possibly not, so then where does the cleaned air go? Back in the classroom or should it be expelled outside the room or even outside the building to ensure that what virus is not captured won’t be expelled back into the room. Raton schools closed up many of the windows in classrooms a few years back leaving only one window in some of the rooms, so using the windows to bring in outside air and expelling bad air out is no longer possible. Not to mention some classrooms at the schools don’t even have windows. NMPED suggested the windows and doors be opened to allow outside air into the building, yea right, its 30 degrees outside and the utilities for the schools are already over six figures each year. Not to mention opening the doors would violate the new secure schools policy of keeping doors closed and locked.
How often will the filters be changed? Will the filters have to be handled by a hazmat specialist since they may contain the virus thus making them a biohazard. Where will the filters be disposed of? If they contain the virus, they shouldn’t be disposed of in the trash can.
Schools that have an HVAC system can pull in outside air and heat or cool it then expel it out through the return air system. Of course, they too will have to have special filters to clean the air that goes into the classrooms. Would Raton be in this situation if the buildings had an HVAC system? Oh yea, there are several voters in the Raton School district who have voted NO to building new schools three times in the past few years leaving parents, students and teachers grappling with the decision whether to return to school buildings with inadequate ventilation systems and other issues or not to return to the classroom.
Update:
The Air Purifier is a Model MA-112 Air Purifier by Medify Air with specifications claiming to clean 2500 square feet every 30 minutes. The spec sheet says the HEPA H13 Filter will last up to 3000 hours. Even still the filters have to be replaced and will they still be classified as a biohazard?
Link to the proposed Air purifier
Good grief our schools in MO have been opened since August and 5 days a week starting the beginning of January.. no one has forced a new ventilation system or talked about new schools. No one is complaining or whining and children are learning. There are some issues that come up I’m sure but they’re dealt with. So glad to be out of NM this past year! So sorry for the children there.