001Hi everyone. Oh, get you booted up. Um, the public meeting at the board of education's facility improvement and oversight committee for April 21st, 2026 is called to order. Um, good afternoon and welcome everybody. Thanks for being here. Um, before we get started, I just wanted to let you know, you're probably all aware that this uh the focus of today's meeting will be on indoor air quality. And uh, let's go ahead and start um, with introductions. I'm Virginia Lefort. Um, obviously uh chair this committee and I live in Northeast Portland. >> I'm Michelle Chase Miller. I'm a member of this committee and I am from zone 4 which is north and northeast. >> Tom Rogers, chief of integrated operations. >> Good afternoon. Just getting our public comment list up here. Okay. So, uh, so next we
002have public comment. Um, please make sure when you begin your comments that you clearly state your name and spell your last name. You'll have two minutes to speak. And we ask that once you hear the sound of the alarm go off, um, to please wrap up your comments. So, let's go ahead and start with I think everybody's online today. Um let's go ahead and start with um our PAT um president um Angela Bonia. >> Hello. Uh my name is Angela Bonia. Uh I am the president of the Portland Association of Teachers and I wanted to speak a little bit to the uh air quality um concerns and and how we can maintain safe air quality uh in our schools. Um, our contract uh in the last bargain actually called for language around a safety committee
003that would ensure that we would provide building specific safety plans in case of the presence of multiple things like pests and leaks but also mold, asbestos, smoke or other impacts to air quality. So we are very much behind any um projects or additional filters or uh you know air filters or other projects that would help us maintain quality air in our classrooms. Um and it is often we are often required to do things that help ensure our safety uh at schools. And so this seems like right in that same wheelhouse of things that could be required in our classrooms to ensure um safe air for all students and workers. Um we also know that student and teacher illnesses uh absences, sick days have been something that's been in the news in the past. Um, one
004way to help prevent uh more absences both from students and workers, especially due to high pollen days, days with wildfire smoke, is to ensure that we have quality um air filtration in our schools and that those changeovers are hitting the recommended number. Um, we know, especially with the uh lack of appropriate funding from the state and budget cuts, that we're going to have more students per class. And as we have more students, that's more kids breathing um hopefully well. Uh but it also means more CO2 in the air and the likelihood of uh increasing the chronic absenteeism or um the likelihood of educators having to use their sick days will increase. It also helps reduce, you know, the fine particulates that might cause long-term harm. So, if we want educators to stay here for their
005entire careers and we want to make sure we give students healthy environments through their K12 career or beyond, we really need to make sure that we have long-term solutions for healthy air in each of our classrooms at every school and that that be mandated by our district so it's followed no matter who's in charge. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Okay, next we have Jerome Adams. >> All right. Uh, good afternoon everyone. I'm Dr. Jerome Adams, former United States Surgeon General from 2017 to 2021. Since leaving that role, I've continued my work as an anesthesiologist and expert on helping people breathe and on public health and health equity as a distinguished professor at Purdue University in Indiana. I grew up in rural Maryland, two hours south of Washington DC. And you might assume
006my first trip to our nation's capital was for a field trip, but it wasn't. At age 8, I was airlifted to a children's hospital in Washington DC, fighting for my life due to a severe asthma attack. That experience taught me how precious and how fragile clean air is, especially for our children. Clean air remains one of our biggest missed opportunities from the pandemic. It's not just about COVID. Clean air reduces harm from asthma, allergies, flu, other respiratory viruses, and everyday pollutants. Strong evidence also links better ventilation and filtration to improved student attendance, focus, and academic performance. Portland Public Schools has already taken important steps measuring air flow in classrooms and securing thousands of federally funded air purifiers through the CDC's ELC program. And I want to give you kudos for that. Yet too many of
007those units I'm hearing remain in storage rather than rather than in classrooms where they're needed. This gap between what the science supports and what students and staff actually experience is quite frankly disheartening to me as someone who has grown up again dealing with breathing difficulties. Portable hepailters are a proven low-cost way to deliver additional equivalent clean air exchanges per hour, especially when placed strategically with more than one unit and larger or high-risisk spaces like classrooms, libraries, and cafeterias. So, I strongly encourage the district to fully deploy, maintain, and monitor its remaining stock of air purifiers. We know that doing so will protect children's health. It will support learning. It will support faculty and staff at the schools. and it will demonstrate respons responsible and in the long run cost-saving stewardship of public resources. Thank you
008for your time. >> Thank you so much. Um, next we have Afton Wilcox there. Afton Wilcox. uh wilx and my pronouns are she her. Um I'm I'm here to talk about a little bit different topic although I appreciate uh this topic very much and all the people that have put a lot of work and uh research and energy into it. We actually have over at Chavez um within the last couple days I guess uh our new air filters. So they're in the hallway now instead of in storage. So next step is getting them in the classrooms. Um so I just want to bring up the fact that um the right sizing uh engagement sessions are going on right now. Um and uh the last facilities meeting that I was at where they did a a
009production of um the schools that are going to be getting the seismic upgrades. um and essentially they um you know gave some some rhyme or reason but still wasn't very clear on how we reached those schools. I want to make sure that all of those schools are still very much on the table for right sizing and I think in order for that to happen um I think that different scenarios need to be put down on paper. Um, I think including uh the two schools receiving full retrofits, the ones that are in the design phase, I think it's going to be really easy to just let that continue to go on in the background um without showing how those monies could be used um at a wider range of schools that are not as dangerous um
010and let them come up in the public engagement topics. Give the public that option to engage around. Um, and I just we still haven't seen it. Uh, particularly from Chavez, the advocacy committee. We've been asking and asking and asking and even though there was again a production uh by the facility committee there was um and were told that it would be a very easy pivot um if something came up in the right sizing conversation. I just find that really hard to believe. Um I don't think anything about this process is easy. So, I think uh to make it go a little smoother that those conversations need to happen now and we need to talk about um other ways that that money could be spent should Beverly Clearary and Rose City Park uh be a school
011that comes up in the right sizing or closure conversation. And I just want to make sure that it it doesn't go unnoticed and uh that the public has access to that information and alternatives. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, next, uh, we've invited, um, Dr. Effie Greathouse to share a report. Um, she's with Safer Indoor Air Quality for Safer Indoor Air for Oregon Schools. Right. I got it. Safe. So, um, excited to have you. That's it. Will you be able to make it full screen? Okay. Uh, so the McDaniel High School air quality report is built on district airflow measurements. Before we returned to Inerson learning, ventilation rates were measured in nearly every room of every building. This is an extremely valuable and powerful data set for evaluating clean air and PPS. There were
012errors in those reports, but all the errors are easy to fix. We have a database with those errors corrected and allows all sorts of calculations of clean air flow. The data forms the basis for our roomby room air quality profiles at McDaniel. We also have a semi-automated way to produce databased air purifier placement plans and recommendations and custom one-pagers for teachers. Let's look at a specific example, a title one school, Chapman Elementary. The data tables are small and hard to read. So, we have a table that pulls out the two main columns of data. The first column is air changes per hour from the HVAC system only. If we look at an example, room one, one of the classrooms does not even get one change of air per hour from the HVAC system. If no
013air purifiers are running, it gets only6 air changes per hour. Another example, room 2 only gets 2.6 air changes per hour without air purifiers. And one more example, room 9 gets only 3.5 air changes from the HVAC system. The table continues on to floor two as well with similar values, 2.7, 2.2,.5. Going back to the first floor, this column gives air changes per hour with an Intellipure air purifier running at its top speed. So, room one would still only get 2.4 4 air changes per hour if the teacher in that room was able to run the Intellipure air purifier at full speed. In our second example, room 4 would get 4.6 air changes with an Intellipure at full speed. But there's a problem with this. An Intellipure at full speed is 59 dB. That is
014way too noisy for classrooms. So we have this second table with air changes per hour based on an estimate of um at its reasonable noise level half speed. If we look again at room one, it is only 1.9 air changes per hour with the Intellipure, not 2.4. Room two, only four air changes with the one Intellipure at a realistic speed, not 4.6. This situation in Chapman's classrooms is the situation in most schools in PPS. One air purifier is undersized for most PPS classrooms. That's why the district signed up for enough free air purifiers from the Oregon Health Authority to provide a second air purifier to every classroom in the district. A few months later, under the previous leadership, this memo was sent to principles. The memo said that only 28 schools in the district would
015get their second air purifiers. Chapman was not on the list. And the reason this memo gave for this title one school not getting these resources is that it said that the average classroom air flow at Chapman is over six air changes per hour. The problem is that average is incorrect. The average was done for all rooms in the report, not just classrooms. The average included rooms like 2E, which is a tiny storage room in the closet. The report claims there is an air purifier in there, giving this closet over 60 air changes per hour. If you take an average of classrooms only with Intel running at full speed, that average is only 4.1 air changes per hour. And if we take a more realistic average of classrooms with intellipears at that half speed estimate, it
016is only 3.5 air changes per hour. So not above six. This is the situation for most of the 68 schools whose second air purifiers are or were in storage. Only a handful of schools actually have an average classroom air flow above six. This column shows air changes per hour Chapman classrooms could get if this title one school uh had its metifies in the school running alongside intellipur instead of in storage. This is air changes per hour with two air purifiers running quietly. We could bring room one up from 1.9 to 4.6 air changes per hour with two air purifiers. We could bring room two up above our minimum goal of 6.8 eight air changes and room nine we could get to a truly excellent level of clean air flow well above six. Room 9 uh
017would be at 7.8 air changes with two units. Let me show an example of what this would accomplish. This is our one pager for room one. Focusing in on the numbers, if room one has no air purifier, it only gets that 6 air changes per hour. At 6 air changes per hour, it takes 4 hours and 5 minutes for the HVAC system to clear out 90% of the kids's respiratory aerosols. So any viruses kids are coming down with, their coughs and sneezes linger and hang in the classroom air for over four hours for everyone else in the room to be breathing in. If the teacher in room 1 runs their Intellipure at half speed, the room would get that 1.9 air changes per hour. At 1.9 air changes per hour, it still takes 1 hour
018and 13 minutes to clear out 90% of aerosols. That is the best case scenario uh for this Chapman classroom by our understanding right now because uh our understanding is that Chapman was not delivered at second air purifiers. That would mean that each sneeze, each cough, each breath takes over an hour for the HVAC system and the air purifier to clear them out. If the teacher had both the Intellipure running at half speed and the Medifi out of storage running at speed two, the room would then get 4.6 air changes and we bring it down to just 30 minutes to clear out 90%. That is still longer than we would like for viruses and other pollutants to be hanging around in the classroom air, but 30 minutes is far better than an hour and 13 minutes.
019Room two is another example. With no air purifiers, viruses and pollutants hang around for over 52 minutes. With two air purifiers, the room is above our minimum goal of six, and it's only 20 minutes to clear things out. When and where it's easy to get rooms and schools close to 12 effective air changes per hour uh using in room filtration, it's only 12 minutes to clear things out. These units filter out respiratory aerosols we all emit as we are breathing, talking, laughing, singing. They also filter out allergens and asthma triggers like mold spores and dust. would smoke all sorts of fine particulate matter that goes deep into our lungs and that we know in the long term causes lung disease and cardiovascular disease including lung cancer and non-smokers. There's also good evidence that cleaning classroom
020air helps with students and staff focus and performance. People do better on tests when they are breathing clean air and it reduces absences and sick days. We just worked with Caesar Chavez to request their share of the air purifiers in storage. This is one of many schools where our active on the ground support helped rectify a deep inequity. This Title One school just requested their $20,000 worth of this clean air infrastructure out of district storage and the units were delivered to them last week. Thank you so much hardworking central office staff for that. Uh, I just talked about the cost that Oregon Health Authority and CDC invested into Cajar Chavez's equipment, but in fact, the costs of doing this are minimal compared to the costs of not cleaning classroom air, especially if there's wise, wellorganized
021use of these resources PPS already has. The Intellipure units would last for six school years without needing a filter replacement if they got a once a year vacuum of their filter 1. The Medifi units would last for at least two school years without needing replacement. Pairing ventilation and in room filtration is also a highly energyefficient way to get excellent clean air. Air purifiers can add up to six air changes to a classroom for only the energy use of a few LED light bulbs. Another way to consider the costs and benefits of ventilation and air filtration is the 330300 rule. For every $3 an institution spends on utilities like electricity and heat, $30 is spent on rent and or building ownership and construction and $300 is spent on payroll. Dr. Allen and Dr. May Cumber say
022that this rule can make a focus on miserly utility spending, say for ventilation, look pretty silly if the expensive assets, the humans, are not functioning at their best. Green building design, including lead, has been overly focused on energy savings for years and has not made health an equal priority. The cost to run two Medifi air purifiers in one of our high school classrooms is $1.17 uh cents per month. For that cost, you typically get four air changes per hour added to the room. In comparison, the cost of 3 days of a substitute teacher when a teacher gets sick because 35 kids are packed into their classroom every period is $827. The cost of air purifiers are also minimal to help ensure air cleaning is still happening even when new HVAC systems have breakdowns. At Bridger,
023which is uh one of the schools that has the new $10 million HVAC system, carbon dioxide levels were over 2500 parts per million uh for two weeks uh before our truly heroic and underfunded facility staff were able to fix it. If the new buildings bring in a modest six effective air changes per hour through the HVAC system and then if these schools air purifiers are moved from the old buildings to the new buildings, these buildings will be set up to easily get Dr. Cororsy's recommendation of 10 effective air changes per hour and even Dr. Lindseay Mar's recommendation to hit the gold standard hospital grade 12 effective air changes per hour. I want to end with the best health analogy for designing schools for clean air. We need to clean our indoor air the way we
024clean our water. In drinking water treatment, the goal is to remove all traces of human waste. We do not clean our water only when there's a chalera outbreak. The same commitment to filtration, purification, and safety for bodily fluids in indoor air should be our northstar. Is that Is that okay? Thank you very much. That was uh impressive. Appreciate all of your um volunteer um work on this, Eie. It's amazing. Um I might have some questions I think at the end. I want to wait until we run through staff. So um Chief Agers, do you want to introduce the team that is presenting tonight? Absolutely. Let me just grab the click app. >> I'm also going to say we're going to do a little bit of musical chairs because we have um our building um and
025subject matter experts with us today. So, we're we're all here, but we're going to be doing a little bit of musical chairs during the presentation. So, just wanted to prepare you for that. So, and I'll introduce when it's time for them to come up. Okay. Hey, good evening. I'm Tom Rogers, chief of integrated operations for Portland Public Schools. Tonight's focus is indoor air quality, how PPS designs for it, how we measure it, and how we invest in it across our buildings. Here's where we're headed. We'll start with our shared values and the standards that guide our work. From there, we'll look at how those standards are being applied in the Cleveland, IDB Wells, and Jefferson modernization projects. We'll cover the air purify inventory and deployment history and close with an update on our PF grant
026awards. Before the technical content, I want to ground us in why this work matters. Student and staff health is the anchor. Uh indoor air quality is a safety issue, not an amenity, and we treat it that way. Our approach is layered. We set ventilation design standards in new and modernized buildings. We maintain public health protocols for atypical atypical conditions like wildfire, smoke, and pandemic response. And we use portable purifiers as the inter room layer where needed. This work is also aligned with the board's climate crisis response policy. Decarbonization, climate resilience, and healthy indoor air are being treated as a single design problem, not competing priorities. So this is a transition slide. The three images represent the full design challenge. Clean outdoor air when we have it, a tight and well-built envelope, and resilience when outdoor
027air is compromised by smoke or pollen. PPS designs to all three conditions, not just the best case day. Air quality in our buildings is engineered, not incidental. So, what is indoor excuse me, what is indoor environmental quality? Here's what we mean by indoor environmental quality in plain terms. Clean, comfortable air that supports learning, health, and focus. Five components drive it. Ventilation to bring in fresh outdoor air. Filtration to remove particles and allergens. Temperature and humidity to maintain comfortable learning conditions. monitoring through carbon dioxide and particulate metrics. Why it matters operationally is straightforward. Better air quality supports student attention, improves comfort for students and staff, and reduces illness-driven absences. Those abs those outcomes translate directly to instructional time and attendance attendance, which are the results that matter. This is sustained through building systems, preventative maintenance, and
028proactive monitoring. It is not a one-time install. Our goal is stated simply, provide healthy air to enhance academic performance and minimize pathogen transmission. Every design decision, every purified deployment and every upgrade ties back to this goal. This next section gets into how we measure air quality and how those measurements translate into design and operational decisions. The air quality is measurable. We use industry standard metrics. In the slides ahead, you'll hear the distinction between quantity, how much air is moving, and quality, how clean and fresh that air actually is. Both matter, and our design approach accounts for both. To walk you through that, I'm going to turn it over to Corey Squire from Bora Architects. Corey, go for it. I can drive for you if you like. >> Sure, go ahead. Um, so yeah, my name
029is Corey Squire. Uh, Bora Architecture and Interiors. because I'm the sustainability director and I've been acting as sustainability lead for IDB Wells and Jefferson High School. Um, and I will kind of talk through the process that um that we've been thinking through designing these schools. I want to start off I guess quick introduction. This is a topic I've been focused on for a long time. I've I've I've helped develop the standards from the institute American Institute of Architecture around indoor air quality. Um, I wrote a book about high performance buildings with a chapter on indoor air quality that architecture firms around the country are using um to to kind of guide their decision-m in this process. Um, and I'm also a parent of a of a PPS student who's in dual language at uh Atkinson.
030Um, so it is I'm I am I'm kind of excited to be here today just to talk about the level of air quality that we are delivering on these new high school modernization projects. So I want to start off by talking about quality verse quantity. Um and both are important and we think about air in in both of these ways. So air quantity the air changes per hour AC is a measure of the circulation of the air. Quality is a measure of kind of the makeup of the air the CO2 levels um in that air uh the oxygen and the particulates. And I like to think of quality as a measure of air freshness. So we can move forward from there. So AC um is only part of the equation and we run into this
031issue where recirculating more air in the same stagnant environment is actually not producing better air quality for for our classrooms. Um what we need to do is flush CO2. We need to flush VOCC's. We need to be clear about how we're bringing air into the building. Um, and the way that we've been thinking about this is through a measure of CO2, which I'll I'll get to in I think the next slide. Um, yeah. So, so the analogy that we've been using to get to the point is we don't want more calories, right? We don't want to think about air as more is better. We want to be very clear about what is the makeup of the air that we are delivering. And we want low CO2 levels. We want low particulate levels. Um, and we
032want a good degree of ventilation and filtration to provide that. similar to the healthy food on the right. So this is so we think about this in two different ways because we need to design for outdoor pollutants and indoor pollutants which are two different things. So next slide please. The way that we think about outdoor pollutants now these this could be smoke from wildfires. This could be pollution uh pollution from car exhaust if there's cars idling outside of our buildings. It be pollen during pollen season. We need to bring fresh air into the into our building to deliver oxygen and to expel like exhaust CO2, but we need to make sure that we're filtering that incoming air. We don't want to bring smoke. We don't want to bring pollen. We don't bring we don't want
033to bring call exhaust into the building. So, we're using a minimum MV 13 filter to prefilter all the air coming into our building. Some air is also recirculated going through a filter as well. And we'll get to that in the next slide, which is how we address indoor pollutants. So there's different indoor pl indoor balloons are distinct from outdoor balloons. Inside we have the generation of CO2 that's people exhaling. Um we have aerosols and odors. We have viruses and bacteria that people are spewing into the air. We also have VOCC's. VOCC's are gases um that come off of potentially furniture or other things that are in the building. Some of these things can be filtered out through recirculating filter. Most of these need to be exhausted. Right? You can't filter out CO2. We can't filter
034out VOCC's at least not with the equipment that we're providing. It's really important that outdoor that polluted indoor air or or stale indoor air is exhausted. Now again some of that air is recirculated as the diagram shows through another MURF 13 filter joining with that fresh incoming air u but the majority of the air that we are that classrooms are experiences then exhausted to the outdoors. So we like to think about CO2 concentration as a holistic air quality metric. Um AC again could be different in different um in with different systems with different classroom geometries. Um but what a kind of kind of gets at is your CO2 concentration. So quick kind of um kind of lay of the land. Our CO2 concentration of outdoor air is about 400 to 450. um CO2 concentration inside
035of a classroom is going to be higher. We like to target this 800 number. 800 parts per million of CO2 results from enough air changes to keep um pathogens and pollutants way down into healthy levels, but it doesn't bring in so much fresh air um that you would have to that you would end up with thermal discomfort issues where the hair would be air would be too hot in the summer, air would be too cold in the winter and the systems have to work too hard to bring that down. So, we are designing for that 800 parts per million value on these projects. And I'll pass it over to Brad who's going to get into the details about specifically how we're achieving that. >> Thanks. Thanks, Corey. Um, I'm Brad Wilson from PAE Engineers. I'm
036the principal in charge of the HVAC design on Jefferson Cleveland and Wells and a parent of Grant Cluster students. Um this slide here is describing how we are designing uh these three schools and they're all being designed uh very similarly although each room has a has a different volume due to different ceiling heights which comes into play with air changes similar to what Corey said we're focusing on uh CO2 and what we're designing to is controlling to 800 parts per parts per million on that and in that only 16% of the annual ors are over that 800 threshold and all of them are below the thousand. Um a lot of uh industry professionals would reference thousand as a threshold but due to the Harvard study um Corey has consulted with us to recommend that 800
037is the right approach and that is what we're doing on these projects. Um so what does that equate to in volume of air? So we're designing the fresh air quantity to the industry standard ashray plus an additional 30%. And when I'm bringing these different that compared to the 800 parts per million what we're doing is taking the worst case scenario and designing to the higher value on the supplier quantity uh the air changes and this is one that I want to issue an amendment to this um and I'll explain why. So the maximum air changes in each of the schools is 5.7 to 7.7. The 3.7 is the minimum that you would be at which would just be all all fresh air. And in different modes, different times of the year, the system fluctuates. U
038but the reality is is that if if needed, it can increase and to 5.7 to 7.7 slightly different on each school. So very near that six air change threshold maximum that some have mentioned but meeting the 800 and a,000 ppm is our is really our guiding light on the on the design criteria. Additionally the air handling systems are being designed for a MV 13 minimum and so the filters that are going to be placed in there on day one are at least MV 13. Um, one of the things to note here is that driving the design to bring in more outside air down to 800 ppm from a,000 uh increases the energy use in the building uh a slight offset about 1% additional energy use but is a a worthwhile uh offset in our mind.
039Um so that summarizes this. We can I think take questions on this at the end. >> Talk about the importance of operable windows. >> Yeah. Um okay. So another important um kind of design consideration for our projects is that we have open operable windows in every classroom. Um, if CO2 levels get too high and for many times of the year, it's fairly comfortable in our climate, you can always open the open the windows and bring in fresh air that way. Opening windows in a very is a very efficient way of decreasing CO2, flushing VOCC's, flushing um, airborne pathogens. Um, and it's a really important backup for all of our systems. So on the next slide, our design also includes uh that you would need portable air filters for atypical conditions, pandemic response or wildfire. Uh
040one of the things that was evaluated was whether that would be a permanent infrastructure and it wasn't um responsible from a cost perspective to have that permanently fixed. And so as part of the design um those would be required to supplement the uh permanent HVAC system. >> But these overall these these three high schools are designed so the HVAC system delivers super high quality healthy air the vast majority of the time. The only time that you need supplemental filtration is if you have one of these pandemic situations or one of these wildfire situations. And I want to add um we are go we're going directly from the three mo what we were asked for on the um agenda was an explanation of the three modernizations. The design um what how we are currently designing above
041and beyond code um having our subject matter experts to speak to that and then going directly into atypical situations where a supplemental um air purifier would be necessary and then directly into our existing legacy um buildings. obviously that are not in the modernization tunnel and kind of talking through um that um deployment history and things of that nature. So that's what we're going to break into now. >> Hello, Joanna, the senior director of RISE. Um so I'm going to walk you through kind of this background information on our deployment history and our inventory status of our portable air purifiers. Um, in 2020, we deployed portable air purifiers to every instructional space within the district as a response to the atypical air conditions born out of the pandemic. In K8 spaces, we deployed 4,500 Intellipure units
042and 1,000 Medifi 112 units to the high schools. The high school ones are used in those locations because of their ability to function over a larger square footage. As we move through the pandemic, PPS hired PBS Engineering, now called Apex, to conduct district-wide air quality tests. They recommended two air purifiers per classroom at 28 schools in the district due to lower air changes in those locations. PPS deployed two new units per classroom at each of those locations. In April of 23, PPS was looking to replenish our air purifiers and our filter stock. At that time, OA offered to donate what we needed. We put in an order for 600 Medifi 112 units um and replacement filters. However, we received approximately 3,500 Medifi 112 Pro units, which are the upgraded units with 5 years of replacement
043filters. Filters are not interchangeable across the Intel and the Medifi. which one is which makes a difference. Um, with the delivery of all these pure 112 Pros, we sent out a communication to all the schools that they could request additional air purifier units. I think that's where I think this next page. >> Yeah, it's good. >> Oh, I can't see that far. I'm sorry. I have to look here. Uh in 2024 um with our climate climate crisis response policy, PPS updated our emergency response protocols around air quality index hazards to include heat and smoke in school closure and response events. Communications were increased districtwide for best practices during high smoke, heat, flu, and pollen seasons. PPS continuously maintains and distributes the air purifiers with custodians cleaning them on a regular basis. They will vacuum the
044filters and we work with the contractor to replace the air filters and maintain units on an annual basis. I will also say that we replace filters outside of that annual basis upon um if if the machine is telling us that it's time to do so. Principles are encouraged to request additional air purifiers for the classrooms as needed. That has been communicated to them and they can email facilities or um our maintenance staff and one they will be delivered. Our facilities um teams continue to update the HVA systems in priority schools with um funding from PAF and the bonds. So currently to date we have delivered over 6,000 air pri air air purifier units. Um we are storing additional units. We have about 2500 metify pro units and about four years of replacement filters remaining in
045the warehouse. Again these are available upon request from building leaders. Just reach out and ask. The maintenance team um is deploying the Medifi 112 Pro units, which was that final shipment we got. Um where the original Intellipure and Medifi 112 units no longer have replacement filters. Schools can and do regular regularly request additional air purifiers through facilities or the warehouse. These are deployed to the requesting school within a few days and schools have the option to keep their existing unit even though we don't have additional filters for them. They may choose to keep those units and continue to vacuum those filters. There are some challenges to our deployment. Um deployment is highly variable. We sent them out all at once. Um, but we regularly receive back from the schools shipments of purifiers from schools that
046no longer want to have them in their buildings. Once we've deployed a purifier, they are sometimes moved to other locations within the school. Um, so and they're not reported back into what location they have moved. So tracking the exact location of deployment is not precise. PPS would ideally procure filters for all of our older Intellipure units. So, I realize people don't want to just get rid of something that is functioning, but we don't have any replacement filters. In order to get replacement filters for the older, smaller units, we would have to do a large cost to the district, which of course we don't have right now anyway. Um, we have an adequate supply of the newer Medifi 112 Pro units and filters to deploy again for at least the next four years. Any questions on
047that? Because now we're we are going to now shift into the PF grant award and projects. But do we want to pause here for any questions or do we want to wait until the it's one uh two more slide three more slides? four more slides. Let me count my slides. >> Go. Let's go ahead and finish and then we'll we'll save our questions for that. >> Okay. Okay. Onward. Uh PF grant awards and projects. Um so PPS has been awarded two large PAF grants in the last few years. Uh the city of Portland city of Portland's Portland clean energy fund is a voter approved corporate tax and the purpose is to drive down carbon pollution and increase community resilience and prosperity starting with Portlanders who are most v vulnerable to impacts of our changing climate.
048By providing funding to priority populations, PAF is working to ensure our most impacted residents are prepared for a changing climate. There is an alignment between PAF's priorities and PPS's climate crisis response and climate justice and sustainable practices policy. So the last we've received two large grant awards from the Portland Clean Energy Fund. The first one is the strateg strategic program 16 or SP16 climate friendly public schools. uh about 19.9 million and that funding is through 2029. And the second award is the collaborating for climate action. Um MEESD is the fiscal agent for that. That's the Multma Educational Services District. And that award is 25.6 million for PPS um through December of 2030. So I'll start with the most recent one. Um the CCA grant we just signed off on or the the intergovernmental agreement was
049just signed. It came to the board last week. Um that is a competitive grant where MESD serves as the fiscal agent for all Portland school districts of six districts and each of those districts has signed the community benefits agreement with the coalition for communities of color conduct community engagement. The grant budget includes energy efficiency upgrades at two schools, um upgrade of HVAC, new air source heat pumps, upgrade of water heaters to electric heat pumps, and upgrade of windows. I will say too that all PF awards need to um contribute to the greenhouse gas reduction and so each of these has to be vetted by PAF when we put forth the project. So windows have been back and forth. So just I put this here but that's what the grant says but it could change. um
050green schoolyard projects um and landscape maintenance as part of that green greening schoolyards for six schools one FTP project manager and a half FTE green schoolyards coordinator. So that's the most current one. The previous PAF grant has two funding components and that was direct award and PPS manages that directly. The first of those components is the studentled climate projects and infra uh is the studentled climate projects. That's $3 million for grades 6 through 12, $10,000 per school per year plus an additional sum for their administrative funding. Last year in the 2425, 317,000 total funds were spent at 34 out of 36 eligible schools um participated engaging over 4,300 students. This current fiscal year, 100% of the 37 eligible schools have submitted project proposals. students will spend over 430,000 plus administrative expenses and that's engaging over
0512700 students involved in the project development and that will flow outwards to an to almost 20,000 students overall. The second component of the SP16 is the infrastructure improvements portion. This is about 16.9 million in physical improvements. This was for enhanced or increased climate comfort in the schools. We have added cooling capability to address the increased frequency of warm and hot days in the school year. We've installed energy efficiency measures to save on utility costs. We're decarbonizing the system by switching from n natural gas to electricity. And we have additional HVAC improvements starting in summer of 2027. In November of 23, part of theou with the PAT committed 10 million of the PAF direct allocation fund to address temperature mitigation at the PF qualified buildings and we were including an PAT representative it to review that
052relevant scope in the application and we've completed that. So this is a breakdown of the SP16. So, we've already completed, like I said, $700,000 of the LED lighting and we did weatherization upgrades. We have just submitted 1.2 million or 1.9 million for design um for the next phase, the design and early work packages for the next phase to prepare for the HVAC improvements. And then starting in 2027, we'll submit to to do the construction of the work that is currently in design. Thank you. And I want to take a minute to thank our building partners um Bora Architecture, PAE, and MAM um to for being here today and our subject matter experts. Thank you for your continued partnership with PPS and please let us know. Uh it's open to questions now. So, >> thank you.
053This has been quite the deep dive. It's been great. Uh so, thanks to all of you. Um do you have any questions? >> Yeah. Um my question was around I I know that um you presented that there was increased communication to schools um about air purifiers, but excuse me. I was curious um to what degree schools are really understanding the benefits of the portable purifiers and having more than one running. Um, sounds like a lot are getting sent back. Um, which is like why? Um, unless they don't understand how having these in addition to whatever they already have uh that's HVAC related um or if they feel like just one is enough and they don't understand why it would be beneficial to have more than one running. So, just curious um what kind of education
054school leaders are getting around that. Yeah, I don't have the exact reasons for why they are getting sent back and um but I can find out exactly what the communication was to see if if we're providing an educational component. >> That would be great. Thank you. >> Okay. I'm just, you know, I was listening to this and correct me if I'm wrong, but it almost feels like there's two things we're addressing. like I was listening to you talk and we were talking about the quality of the air coming in and indoor air particulate um VOCC's um CO2 and what I'm hearing around the testimony for the air purifiers is in large part related to viruses. So it feels like there's kind of two different lenses. Is that fair? >> I can address Yeah, that is
055clear. I can address that. And the other lens is new construction first existing building. So a portable filter in a classroom will filter out particullet that includes could be smoke, could be viruses, bacteria, water droplets, um any physical particulate in the air. It will not decrease CO2. That can only be increased by bringing in fresh air. And CO2 is keeping CO2 levels low is essential for learning. It also cannot address VOCC's. Uh, VOCC's are gaseous compounds that come off of mostly solid materials. Um, often like new car smell is a VOCC and the filters don't do anything for that. And VOCC's can trigger asthma and can also um cause other sort of attention and focus issues. U so the new schools filtration is a really important part of what we're doing, right? We are we
056are filtering out particulates and we're filtering out smoke and pollen and whatever else in the incoming air. The primary strategy for indoor air quality for the new schools is that higher ventilation rate to flush stale air out of the building and bring fresh filtered air into the building. That is a much harder thing to accomplish on an existing building because you don't have that increased level of ventilation design from the beginning. So I hope that kind of helps um kind of distinguish between the various challenges that we're facing. So the the the metifies and the intellipers don't address VOCC's >> VOCC's or CO2. No. >> Okay. Um we talked about operable windows in every classroom which clearly we'll have with the new buildings. This is an issue that I've heard about um in our older
057buildings particularly um because of the the heating issues that we have with the classrooms getting so hot. Um in fact, I was in a high school recently where the handles had actually been removed from the windows so that they could not be left open. Um do we have um any policy or information on you know I I worry about windows being painted shut. Um you know has is there any centrally located information on the windows because they are really important especially in our older schools. >> So that also fly comes into a security element as well. um if it's on the ground floor uh we need to verify that the windows can't be left open overnight for security reasons. Um so there are a lot of steps that go into it and each site is
058very specific. Uh one of the things we are looking at is what we can do with these maintaining security and decreasing some of the heat that's coming in. Um we're looking at lots of options but with a low deficit that's pretty tough but we're trying to leverage some capital pro capital um money and that's what Sarin and the RISE team is doing a really outstanding job at identifying those sites and trying to target our resources uh so they could be most effective. >> You were talking about carbon dioxide. Oh, I'll I'll just mention that uh just broadly the ability to open a window in a classroom even for a short period of time is very very effective at bringing in oxygen, flushing CO2, flushing particulates, flushing viruses and VOCC's. It kind of addresses everything. There's
059consider considerations around security. There could be considerations around it being very hot or very cold. Um but opening windows will typically flush the air in a classroom very quickly and very efficiently. And a lot of existing schools have that technology if it hasn't been disabled. >> The technology of opening a window. It does make a big difference. I know when um you know I did some research um when Tubman was being reopened and had um air quality tests um pulled and you could see complaints from educators and staff when they felt that, you know, a room was sick. That's how like a sick building basically. And um that they were tired, they were having headaches. um you know all the things and when the tests were run like nine times out of 10 um the
060carbon dioxide levels were um highly elevated and I could see this being an issue in a lot of our older buildings. Um, so just wanted to say that. Um, in terms of maintenance, custodial custodians vacuuming the filters, I also had the uh opportunity to see one of these uh air filters and had the one of the an educator like pulled the filter out of the the machine and it was disgusting. I mean, it was like I have pictures of it where you could just peel off like a layer this thick. and he said it'd probably been like two months and this was in, you know, a building, one of our buildings that was probably built in the 50s. Um, how is the maintenance of these units? How is that incorporated with our maintenance team? Like
061how often is it like I hear as needed? What does that mean? >> Again, it's very much on demand and it comes down to the resources available by our custodians. um if if there's the the requirement is for them to change out those filters or vacuum those filters or or take those steps uh it just comes down to a priority level of what they can reach throughout the day. So we don't have a formalized program but right now it's almost easier for us to send out a new filter or a new system and then bring it back and try to um repurpose the old unit as best we can. >> Are the old units are they really repurposed? Are they disposed of? >> Depends. Um, if we can repurpose it, we can, but most of
062them do end up uh, well, some of them go end up in e-waste. >> Okay. So, the filters, the Intellipur that are being replaced by the metifies because we're out of filters. Um, you said that there was um, uh, significant expense. Do we have an estimate for the cost of replacement filters for the Intellipers or we just concerned that it's an additional expense versus a great expense? >> I don't know the number. Um but we because we have four years of filters for the other ones down in the warehouse. Um we might have a estimate but I don't know of it. But we have so many filters to store more of them would be also a burden. I was going to say it actually would be more cost effective for the the district to deploy
063the ones that we have filters for than to ex put more money out on the ones we on the old units because then we have then we still have four years of filter storage in our warehouse plus the units that have not been deployed yet. >> I think the question would be do we have enough metifies to deploy them in every classroom? I think we would probably need both the intellipures and the metifies to cover all of our classrooms. Oh, Effie, >> we have Effie. Sorry, raising our hand. >> Um, I want to affirm that I would not um recommend buying replacement filters for Intel peers if and when the district has resources six years from now for filters that we need in classrooms. Um, a different model would probably be a better use of
064better investment. Um and again I want to reiterate those um the teleipur have all been changed within the last one or two years and the only filter in it that does anything lasts for six years if they are only run during school days. Uh Corey even affirmed that they're not effective at filtering the VOCC's. The filters that sort of uh Intel is looking for people to change more often is a ineffective um filter sort of intended for VFC and it's not effective at it and it can just function as a pref filter and get vacuum and that all that equipment serve our schools for four to five more years. Thank you. Um, so if we have the units and we don't have consistent communication to our schools necessarily suggesting that they bring them into the
065classrooms, I'm just curious why are we not requiring them if we have them? Um, I can get some really good answers for that, but based on my experience and the answers I do have, we received significant push back from some educators who didn't want that noise, who did not want them in the classrooms. So, we were trying to, uh, definitely support our teachers and so they could have what they needed in the classroom. Um, but that was all kind of during the co era and as we've come out of it. >> So, uh, I know those were some of the reasons, but I can get you some more feedback. It seems like it would be worth revisiting also because uh you know during our public testimony um you know Angela actually even mentioned that as
066well u making it a requirement for them to be in the classrooms. So thought that was interesting. Um and let's see I think do we have in our schools in our older schools which is the vast majority do we regularly monitor the air quality? Do we have a system to check the air on an annual basis or is it basically are we reactive? Are we reacting when we get complaints? >> I don't know the answer. >> Yeah, Tom, if you know the answer to this. I mean, I'm not I don't know that we have an air testing. >> It's okay if we don't know. It's not true. We can send I'll send a followup back on that. uh it it's generally on demand, you know, based on when something that we we have a smell
067or some kind of issue, then we deploy and test and verify. We do have some proactive measures that we're exploring at this time. I don't want to comment too much because it's still very much in its early infancy. Um but uh we do have some ideas going forward. >> I'll I'll share that for our new high schools u we do have ongoing CO2 monitoring which is what controls the damper that brings in fresh air and that's part of the design standard. That was one of my other questions was actually about this. Are there plans or can there like in terms of the carbon dioxide monitors in each classroom in the new schools? Are there is that >> and and we're upgrading our old school our digital controls in our older schools as well. As we're
068upgrading those systems, we're also incorporating that CO2 monitoring as well. >> Okay. There's a lot of I mean clearly the reason we're doing this is because there's just a lot of interest from um the PPS um family communities about um this issue and I'm sure you know co had a lot to do with that um and uh I think it's great to shine a light on something like this especially when we have the tools um available in our warehouses to address you know a significant port portion of this problem and then touching on the windows as well. So, um, those were my questions and I'll definitely send some followup about maybe um potential processes that we might be able to put in place that we could address in a future um FIO meeting. But I
069want to thank all of you. Aie, thank you for coming. Thank you all of you. Thank you for coming and giving us this deep dive. This is um uh really interesting and um important for the health of our students and educators. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you. You got >> Thank you. >> Do you have anything or we can always talk offline if you have you have anything you'd like to add to a future agenda? >> Um, nothing right now, but >> you know where to find me. >> And with that, I'm gonna do this. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.