Page 4 - Indoor Air Quality 3Roda

In fact, chronic absenteeism may be the strongest absenteeism costs Florida more than $228 million
predictor of dropping out — stronger than test a year — at least $1,020 per chronically absent
scores or grade-point average. 17 student. 18

It’s not just fractions, grammar, and history these In Austin, Texas, where a single student absence
students miss out on; they’re also shortchanged on costs schools $45 in state funding, the district
learning the real-world skills, such as working with launched an Every Day Counts campaign to boost
a team and staying organised, that colleges and attendance. Austin improved attendance from
employers look for. 94.3% to 95.1% over three years, reaping an extra
$2 million from the state. Another Texas district,
In states where funding is tied to attendance rather Pflugerville, saved $1 million in one year simply by
than enrollment, budgets suffer tremendously increasing attendance 0.7%. 19
when students miss school. For example, student

How the School Environment Fosters

Absenteeism

When exploring avenues to boost attendance, Schools may not recognize the number and variety
schools may not immediately consider the school of contaminants that may be wafting in the air
building itself or indoor air quality in particular. or coating school surfaces — or just how easily
pathogens can spread when hundreds of children
“It’s usually not an issue until something happens spend their days in close proximity.
that puts it on a district’s radar,” says Paul Ziegler, of
EducationPlus in St. Louis. “You assume air quality is “Kids have runny noses and wipe their nose and
fine, and then you have an outbreak of influenza and touch their face and their friends and every object
you think, ‘Hmm, ‘What’s going on here?’ Then you go around them,” notes Werner Bischoff, M.D., Ph.D.,
on the path of super-cleaning.” a professor of infectious diseases at Wake Forest
School
of Medicine. 20
You assume air quality is
fine, and then you have an Desks, chairs, classroom toys, shared books, drinking
outbreak of influenza and fountain handles, door knobs — all school surfaces
are prime vectors for the spread of bacteria and
you think, ‘Hmm, ‘What’s viruses that cause the flu, stomach bugs, or the
going on here?’ common cold.

- Paul Ziegler, Pathogens can be thrust into the air when, for
Executive Director of EducationPlus example, a contaminated carpet is vacuumed or

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