Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Cleaner Air Means Happier, Healthier Students

  • 08/01/15
Cleaner Air

Cleaner air means students will be healthier, and absent less, as was the case at Community Consolidated School District 181.

Nothing gets A principal’s attention quite like a parent or teacher concern. If it’s a health-related issue tied to air quality, the facility manager is also in the hot seat.

That’s where Mike Vilendrer, facility coordinator at Community Consolidated School District 181, found himself after a teacher and a parent voiced concern about air quality situations in separate classrooms.

Vilendrer’s IAQ to-do list included:

  • Science lab: A student with sensitive allergies had persistent health problems because of suspected air quality issues in a science room. The child’s parent asked that a HEPA filter purification system be installed.
  • Art room: Art supplies were sending lots of dust and other particles into the air, creating an uncomfortable and unhealthy environment.
  • Classroom: A teacher reached out to the principal about consistent problems with the air quality in her classroom.

Vilendrer quickly realized that the HVAC system for the 108,000-square-foot school was not equipped to handle the air quality problems he faced.

He installed four AeraMax Professional commercial-grade air purifiers — three for the main problem locations and one in the band room.

Another reason Vilendrer decided to take a targeted approach. The unit is designed to turn on and off on its own and remain quiet in public buildings.

“As far as the operational side, they’re quiet as can be and don’t impact teaching at all,” Vilendrer says.

Eight months after installing the units the difference was clear. “The issues we were having completely went away,” he notes.

More remarkably, the art teacher told Vilendrer that there had been a noticeable drop in absences compared with past school years.

www.aeramaxpro.com

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Surging Demand for Student Housing Fuels Major Campus Investment Opportunities

    University leaders throughout the U.S. are accelerating plans to modernize and expand student housing as enrollment stabilizes and demand for on-campus living rebounds. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that total postsecondary enrollment is projected to grow through the end of the decade, with undergraduate enrollment alone expected to increase by more than 8 percent by 2030.

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Myrtle Grove Elementary

    Phased Construction Keeps Students on Campus During Rebuild

    When Escambia County School District needed to replace most of Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Pensacola, Fla., it had three distinct challenges: honor the school's legacy in the community, bring state-of-the-art learning environments to the county, and be seamlessly built on the same site as the active school campus.

  • school building with glowing circuit board patterns

    AI Is Coming to Schools — But Most School Buildings Still Run on Institutional Memory

    As school districts race to introduce AI into classrooms, administration, and curriculum planning, another conversation is happening behind the scenes: How prepared are school facilities themselves for the operational demands AI will create?