During the Covid -19 Pandemic, all school districts sought out strategies to help mitigate the risk of infection for students and staff. This resulted in Royal Oak Schools immediately implementing two of the three major changes, recommended by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). These changes increased air filtration and increased outside air.
Royal Oak Schools continued to explore a third mitigation strategy to clean and purify the air supplied to our buildings. During this process, Royal Oak Schools sought guidance and advice from Michigan's COVID-19 task force and our local ASHRAE Chapter to help vet the many different types of systems offered to improve indoor air quality.
After a great deal of reviews and study, Royal Oak Schools has chosen UVC technology, the same technology used by many local health agencies and hospitals. UVC technology is the only air cleaning system currently endorsed by ASHRAE because of the extensive third-party testing verifying the efficacy of UVC systems ability to kill the COVID-19 virus as well as many other pathogens and irritants that will benefit our building occupants beyond the recent pandemic by providing greatly improved indoor air quality.
The UVC equipment will draw in room air and treat it with concentrated UV light and then disperse sterile room air into that space. The UVC addition to the buildings of the district will take place in two phases. The first phase will address all large air handling equipment and inpidual units for classrooms and office spaces. The second phase will address hallways and larger restrooms. The bid award for the first phase was awarded on June 24, 2021, and work began at Royal Oak High School in the summer.
Click here for a feature on this story that aired on Fox 2 News on August 31, 2021.
CLEANING AT ROYAL OAK SCHOOLS