School trustee pushing for air quality assessments at all schools

A Vernon school trustee is pushing the district to make air quality assessments available at all schools .

Jen Comazzetto says the smoke’s impact on student’s health should not be ignored especially given the unprecedented wildfires that have scorched the Okanagan the past three years.

” With the smoke that we have had in the Okanagan the past three years we were actually at a level that would of been considered a crisis,” said Comazzetto.”

She urged the district to look into installing HEPA filters to help purify the air.

“It ‘s the small particulate matter in the air that gets into the lungs much like vaping and smoking would have, with some of the health effects . So it is not about the quality or the flavour of the air.”

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She says recent research has indicated that poor air quality can impact students by one full grade level.

But School Board Chair, Robert Lee says that’s not according to data from the Ministry of Environment.

” Last year I sat in on Municipal meeting up in Coldstream and they had someone from the Ministry of Environment and they have a huge amount of data that’s available,” said Lee

” The interesting thing that I do recall though was that except for very few days due to the forest fires the index was at below what would normally be expected ,” said Lee

Comazzetto’s request has been sent to district staff to look into.