Fundraiser looks to community as two thirds of TVDSB classrooms lack HEPA air filtration units
CTV
As students prepare for the return of in-person learning, a local school board trustee is urging the community to help bring air filtration units to more classrooms.
As students prepare for the return of in-person learning, a local school board trustee is urging the community to help bring air filtration units to more classrooms.
“The (provincial) government understands the importance of HEPA filter units, yet we are not getting enough to put them in every classroom,” explains Corrine Rahman, a trustee at the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB).
According to TVDSB administration, only about 1,400 of the board’s estimated 4,000 classrooms currently have portable HEPA air filtration units.
Almost two out of every three classrooms will reopen without a unit when in-class learning resumes Monday, Jan. 17.
Rahman is encouraging the community to contribute what they can to a fundraiser by the Thames Valley Education Foundation that will allow the public school board to purchase additional HEPA air filtration units for $750 each.
TVDSB administration uses the province’s centralized purchasing system to ensure the equipment meets requirements and is equitably distributed to local classrooms where additional air filtration would be the most beneficial.
Trustee Rahman is frustrated that the community must step in to fundraise, “Our goal is as many (filtration units) as possible, and to continue to advocate for the province to fund these.”
