Amador County – Amador County Unified School District board of trustees heard a report on the school district’s air quality inspection from a professional with the district’s insurance collective.

Doug Carson, Loss Control Assistant with Pritchard Safety and Health, told trustees that he monitors air quality at school sites and facilities, and how the tests are used to evaluate air quality and locate contaminants. He said “your interior air is good.”

Carson told trustees that it was critical that teachers keep running their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in order to get fresh air into the buildings, and to keep carbon-dioxide (cO2) from building up. He said high cO2 levels can cause burning skin and can affect learning and test scores. He said teachers must run the systems and not keep the HVAC systems off just to increase hearing between the front and back of the classroom.

Carson said his sampling looked at mold inside and outside the classrooms and buildings to see if some mold is more prevalent inside than it is outside. If there is more of a type of mold inside, then they see if they can find the source of the mold. He said: “Your interior air is good.”

Trustee Lynette Lipp said she is the one who asked for Carson’s report, and she asked him if he knew about studies of using leaf blowers having the affect of increasing mold in the air. Carson said he had never heard of it. Lipp said she could give the study information to him about that issue.

Story by Jim Reece