September update - the clean air movement is growing
We hope that everyone is having a good start to the school year so far.
We’re seeing increased attention and public interest in improving indoor air quality in schools and on school buses lately, and it’s got us pretty excited. We wanted to share with you what we’ve been up to lately and let you know how you can help advance our cause. We know this can be a stressful time of year (we feel it too). We have added more tools on our website to help you take control of the situation and feel hopeful—as we do—that change is on the horizon.
NEW: Back-to-school letters to teachers, education workers and principals
In addition to the recently added school board trustee letter generator, Ontario School Safety has developed some printable letters to help you start the conversation about indoor air quality with your teachers, education workers, and principals.
We also have a letter to principals from members of the community. Concerned community members are encouraged to print this letter and mail it to a few schools in their community, because measures taken to reduce illnesses at the school level have a direct impact on the health of the entire school community.
All of these letters can be found under the Take Action tab at www.ontarioschoolsafety.com. They can be downloaded, printed, mailed, or emailed to schools and they are offered in both English and French.
We will be adding more tools and resources, so keep checking back to see what’s new. Let’s keep this Clean Air movement going by spreading the word far and wide!
Fundraising update
A recent update on our legal challenge can be found at our GoFundMe page. Please check it out and donate if you can! Every little bit helps get us closer to our goal. If you have fundraising ideas in terms of donors or organizations who may be interested in supporting our cause, please get in touch or share our information with them!
August events: Corsi-Rosenthal air purifier workshop and donation
On August 26, Ontario School Safety co-hosted a DIY Corsi-Rosenthal air purifier workshop with Ryan Tennant, Systems Design Engineering PhD Candidate at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Amy Li, (Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo) and our very own Kate Laing (Chair of Ontario School Safety) presented keynote speeches. It was a great day of hands-on and academic learning about the importance of ventilation, filtration and air purifiers in improving indoor air quality.
Ontario School Safety members donated the CR boxes that they made at the workshop to the Waterloo Region District School Board on August 31. WRDSB has requested further information and we are busy working on a response to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of the air purifiers. Research shows that CR boxes perform better than store-bought air purifiers, so it is our hope that this exchange will help enable all school boards to add CR boxes to their indoor air quality toolkit.
If you feel inspired and want to help out, you can write to the WRDSB or any school board and your trustee to express that you are in support of having a CR box in your child's classroom. If you want to do even more, why not make your own CR box and donate it to your school? Please let us know how it goes on social media or by email.
Send us your tips
We have been getting reports of standalone HEPA units disappearing from classrooms this year. How’s your child’s classroom so far? Have you noticed anything concerning? We are gathering any and all pertinent information related to the lack of indoor air quality measures so please send us your tips at tips@ontarioschoolsafety.com. If you’re an education worker, please don’t use your work email or WiFi to send information, because work emails could be subject to Freedom of Information requests.
That’s it for now but please keep checking our website for more resources, tools and updates.
Thanks so much for your support and interest! Together, we will make a difference!
Ontario School Safety