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1/Good morning, friends! Remember last night during the City Council Education Committee meeting when BCass was like, surprise! In-person for some peeps on Thurs, yo! Because children! and I completely lost any chill I ever had…
2/...and then some lady I don’t know had to walk the Thurs stuff back anyway because that’s not actually how this works, BCass, but I was still ripshit angry and yelling about receipts? That was fun, right? So is this! It’s the part where I get to...
3/...show you stuff you have the absolute legal right to see but BPS would prob prefer you not, esp ‘cause their man Sam DePina got on the Zoom w/ his “we felt compelled to make sure the community knew the buildings were safe & air had been tested” stuff. So, yeah, about that...
4/We’re going on a bit of a journey, here: first we’re going to look at how shady BPS is with air quality/CO2 reporting, both now and in the past. Then we’re going to talk abt how CO2 testing (even done right) won’t help us now but other things really can.
5/And then I might yell some more, let’s be honest. Because despite my unnervingly chipper tour guide affect, I have not been this angry in a long time. Last night, Brenda doubled down on holding up high-needs families as human shields in her desperate attempt…
6/...to get both teachers & students back into under-ventilated buildings w/ no temperature control right when we’re seeing COVID-19 growth in our city turn exponential. And if you’re still in the “but COVID doesn’t kill kids” camp, then first of all, fuck you. And second…
7/...what is WRONG w/ you? “Centering the child” doesn't mean “putting child in position to infect family members, potentially fatally, & then carry that around for the rest of their life.” It DOES mean including the centering of children of BPS teachers/support staff too. And...
8/...it includes my fear for those we love & my grief for those we’re losing & my helplessness to prevent this from being what my kids’ childhood is & my pain from watching one of them lose their spoken language & struggle to be understood again. So if you’re still determined…
9/...to see me as anything other than someone fighting for ALL of us, then: haha! I don’t care. Cause you’re an asshat. And you haven’t been listening to me & many others say that in-person doesn’t just mean in-crappy-school-bldg. So I’m done w/ you. Everyone else, let’s do this.
10/So BPS has been saying up & down that they & BPHC have tested indoor air quality in every school every year & they’ve never found any concerning results despite the majority of schools having been built before WWII, when high quality HVAC wasn’t really a thing...
11/...and what they REALLY mean is they’ve been kinda testing IAQ in the 35-ish buildings that actually have HVAC, and in the other 90-odd buildings they kinda check to see if it looks dusty or smells bad. This is not, in fact, “monitoring air quality”.
12/And yes, they do check for carbon monoxide in all buildings, but that’s kind of in the camp of “and there should also not be any rabid animals inside”. It’s kind of a given that that’s never ok, and it’s easy to check for. Adequate ventilation, on the other hand, is not…
13/...as easy as one would hope. What you really want to measure is air changes per hour (ACH), but that’s determined to be too much of a pain sometimes so you can check the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a proxy, but ONLY if there are ppl in the room to produce…
14/...CO2 so you can make sure it’s getting vented out of the room and fresh air is coming in, instead of just having the CO2 hang out. No people, no CO2, no point in the test. That’s what BPS just did - tested empty rooms, knowing it was useless - in every school. Now...
15/BPS loves saying that they only did this because the BTU asked them to. And that’s interesting ‘cause there’s this document right here wherein they determine that this would be great ‘cause it’ll make ppl think air is safe, but it’s kind of a bummer ‘cause it’s bullshit.
16/The takeaway here is that yes, the BTU should have done more homework to make sure this was a legit way to test ventilation, but BPS *knew* it wasn’t. And they did it. AND they manipulated their reporting of it so ppl wouldn’t notice. If you’re a BPS parent...
17/...you prob got an email on Monday with a link to “the results of all BPS air quality tests”. Link is here: https://tinyurl.com/bps-iaq but let me save you the time: each school has a report that explains how testing works, and indicates (succinctly) that that school passed.
18/Then there’s another document which, to my knowledge, was not originally included when these reports were given at least to BTU reps; I don’t know if they were sent to principals or not. But this one states clearly that testing was done without ppl present.
19/So one report says “It’s really important to test CO2 only in spaces that are occupied. Also, your school passed.” And then a separate letter just to BPS Facilities that says “btw, rooms totes weren’t occupied.” I think it’s kinda funny that BPS put them both up, tbh. And...
20/...along with that letter is a far more detailed report listing the room and the bullshit CO2 value and the fact that there was minimal carbon monoxide and few if any rabid animals. Doubleplussafe.
21/So, ok, we know those tests are malarkey. BPS’s argument was still that they had been testing for years & everything was great. But check it: on the right (green) is the b.s. unoccupied testing data. Blue is CO2 readings for the same spaces in SY18-19 annual inspection.
22/If you’re going to say that over 1,000 ppm is a problem *and* say you have no problems, you should prob not have readings over 1,000 ppm. And yet here we are. Why didn’t BPS share this, you may ask? According to them, they did. But what they really share...
23/...is a “summary report” of each annual inspection done jointly by BPS & BPHC. Those summary reports are what they post on their website, and they don’t tell you a goddamned thing. Behold...
24/...this guy! This is the “summary” of that inspection with all the >1k CO2 readings. It’s like those cuttlefish that flash weird colors at you so you get all distracted & forget to ask about air quality. I helpfully highlighted the part they put in tiny text on the 2nd page.
25/Has anyone other than me ever looked for these “non-summary” reports? I honestly don’t know. But there’s a thing here I really want you to understand: remember how unoccupied CO2 testing → useless? In SY18-19, of the ~2,390 CO2 readings done, 918 of them are occupancy=0.
26/That could mean a bunch of things. Could be there had just been a whole class who left & the room was measured right after. Could be there had been two people max in there all day. Could be anything. And without this knowledge, this data is meaningless. You CAN'T say…
27/...a building is safe OR unsafe. I mean, also, when you’re putting out statements like “we’ve never found any concerning results” & you have schools with 10, 15, 20 rooms w/ CO2 over your own stated limit, you should prob do some soul searching. OK! So, that’s crap. Next…
28/...I want to make it clear that the solution is NOT to get ppl back into buildings and do more CO2 testing. CO2 is a proxy, remember? What we want is to check ACH. Believe it or not, this is a thing! https://schools.forhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2020/08/Harvard-Healthy-Buildings-program-How-to-assess-classroom-ventilation-08-28-2020.pdf
29/And it's a thing that real schools do in real life. Remember when we had the safety walkthroughs & we thought that meant stuff would need to be fixed if it was wrong but turns out it only meant we got to have a safety walkthru? Some places fix things. https://mps-edu.org/cms/lib/MA02212715/Centricity/Domain/919/Memo-MHS%20Mechanical%20Assessment%20II%20Update%20III.pdf
30/I refuse to have a thread longer than 30 tweets & really all I want to say is: listen to experts like Jonathan Haines & MassCOSH. Don't buy into the teachers vs families ploy. Take care of yrself. Take care of each other. We can do this the right way if we're strong enough.
