By Brittany Anderson

Air purifiers that will offer an added layer of safety against COVID-19, allergens and other viruses are coming to every Hays CISD campus in the coming weeks.

In a 6-0 vote, board members approved during their board meeting on Sept. 27 the $4.4 million purchase of over 1,700 Novaerus NV900 air purifiers for HCISD schools using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds. Board member Esperanza Orosco was not present at the meeting.

The increased price from $4.1 million to $4.4 million comes from the addition of 83 extra units for Head Start, Early Learning Centers (ELCs), Special Education (SPED) and the Pregnancy, Education and Parenting (PEP) program, as well as the added labor costs associated with these additions. Classrooms, nurses offices, reception areas, art rooms, music rooms, gyms, cafeterias, libraries and athletic rooms were already accounted for.

Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright clarified that intervention programs will not be cut in order to pay for the units, but that payment for them has been built into the ESSER funds budget. He also remains optimistic about the district’s return on investment regarding the purifiers.

“Pre-COVID, our district averaged around 95% attendance,” Dr. Wright said. “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to increase our attendance enough to pay for [the purifiers]  over the course of the next several years.”

The board received a bulk of the information about the air purifiers from HCISD Chief Operational Officer Max Cleaver at its last meeting on Sept. 20.

The purifiers, which come with a seven year warranty, are roughly the size of a gaming console and mount on the wall. Using patented NanoStrike Technology, an electrical current destroys pathogens every 45 minutes in spaces up to 1,200 square feet, the size of an average classroom. Cleaver said the units are 99.99% effective in killing COVID.

While the units could have been delivered to the district as early as Thursday, Sept. 30, the board agreed that they want at least one purifier to perform an air quality test to determine their effectiveness in classrooms before they were officially purchased and delivered.

Samples of a room’s air quality are collected before and after the purifier has run for an allotted amount of time and then sent to a lab, with results coming back in about a week.

Board president Vanessa Petrea said that they recognize this will cause a delay in delivery and installation, but deemed it necessary to do so before making the millions-of-dollars commitment.

Cleaver said that once the district has received the units, he aims to have them installed within 30 days, starting at elementary schools, then moving to middle schools and finishing with high schools. Board member Meredith Keller also suggested they install the units based on the number of COVID cases at each school.

Despite voting for the purifiers, board member Willie Tenorio, Jr. said he still supports a mask mandate, saying it is more cost-effective and physically effective in combating COVID in classrooms.

“It’s been said that the reason we don’t want to do a mask requirement is because there’s going to be a lot of costs with lawsuits and fines,” Tenorio, Jr. said. “They would pale in comparison to the $4.4 million we’re spending on [the purifiers]. I think if we’re willing to spend that, we could be spending a little bit of money on possible lawsuits or fines from the governor or local DA, which is unlikely.”

Board member Will McManus also echoed Tenorio, Jr.’s sentiments – while the addition of purifiers will help create a safer environment, they are not the end-all, be-all solution to COVID.

“I don’t want people to think that this is something we’re going to put in a room and suddenly everybody’s going to be well all the time,” McManus said. “It could easily be misinterpreted that way. Masking is still something we’re urging families to do. We don’t want to let our guards down and have classrooms closed.”

Cleaver agreed to update the board in the coming days with information regarding the air quality tests before the units are purchased.