Healthy Schools

North Bend School District Chooses Air Purification Provider

• By Matt Jones
• 10/11/21

The North Bend School District in North Bend, Ore., recently announced that it has chosen Alen as its provider of indoor air quality solutions. According to a news release, the district has ordered 158 units to protect every classroom and communal space across its four schools, which serve a total of 2,300 students. Alen, based in Austin, Texas, has a presence in more than 50,000 classrooms across the country and provides solutions that purify the air of allergens, mold, dust, bacteria and other airborne viruses, including COVID-19.

“We conducted significant research in our selection of Alen’s purifiers to protect our students, faculty and staff with the most efficient air purification system,” said North Bend School District Superintendent Kevin Bogatin. “Alen air purifiers supplement our current HVAC system to deliver powerful air cleaning capacity that is whisper-quiet, meets the 4–6 air changers per hour according to public health recommendations and has medical-grade True HEPA filtration.”

The purifiers have already been installed at the district’s four schools: Hillcrest Elementary, North Bay Elementary, North Bend Middle School and North Bend High School. The press release states that air purifiers with the correct capacity for a classroom reduce virus particle counts, reducing the chance that an infected student will add enough particles to the air to infect another student. The air purifiers use specialized fans to pull air through a large HEPA filter, cleaning it of microscopic particles. Independent lab tests show that the Alen products can capture about 99.4% of virus particles from a 1,050-cube-foot area within 20 minutes.

“The decision-makers at North Bend did their homework, and the families in their district should be proud and grateful for their decision,” said Andy Graham, CEO of Alen. “We at Alen are dedicated to the science of air flow and how aerosol viruses travel, and we are on a mission to arm decision-makers with the facts. We are aligned with what scientists and experts are saying. There are three critical elements to consider: the number of air changes per hour, the need for true HEPA H13 filtration (not HEPA-like) and the need for a powerful system that can run constantly and—equally important—quietly.”