School board hears of ways to improve air quality regarding COVID

Matt Thompson of Ameresco, an engineering services company, gave a presentation to the Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees Tuesday night, detailing an energy audit his company recently completed at the schools and possible ways they can use ESSER funds to improve air quality and air filtration in their buildings.

ESSER funds can be used by schools to address COVID-19 related expenses, which includes upgrading or repairing equipment used for air ventilation which is a way to significantly reduce the spread of diseases like COVID-19.

Thompson said increasing ventilation rates through these upgrades is feasible through special contracts that allow them to apply for loans that can pay for upgrades with no need to create levees or ask tax payers for more money, and combined with ESSER funds this becomes far more doable than it normally would be.

He said he and his team recently went through the last three years of data on energy usage and efficiency at each school building as well as walking through them, finding problem areas and proposing solutions that could improve ventilation, some of which have since been addressed by maintenance teams who he said were great to work with.

He said while the district over all is very well run, there are some buildings that do have unusually high energy use intensity, and suggested various ways that problem and flaws in the buildings' ventilation may be addressed.

Thompson said maintenance teams can improve things by troubleshooting some of the airflow problems pointed out by the team, installing destratification fans in certain areas to better mix air, replacing current boilers with smaller more efficient condensing boilers models to increase the systems' reliability, and especially replacing pneumatic temperature controls with more reliable direct digital controls.

He said, unfortunately, contractor availability for this kind of work isn't very high, especially for working on pneumatic temperature controls, and prices are poised to go up in the coming years.

He said his own outfit, Ameresco, is one of the world's largest and most experienced energy performance contractors, and is independent from bias as they have no ties to equipment manufacturers or contracting firms.

He said his company is ranked first in execution and third in strategy amongst a group of 10 peer energy services providers.

District Clerk Shanna Flores attested to the audit team's competence, saying it was great to see the district's maintenance teams, who were skeptical at first, work so well with them.

Flores said after two minutes of talking to the audit team it was clear to the maintenance workers that they knew what they were doing, and they've already made improvements in the high school based on things the audit team pointed out.

Trustees thanked Thompson for his time and said they would discuss what they want to do about this issue in their next board meeting.

The board also approved the creation of the COVID-19 Leave Bank, which will provide up to 500 days of paid sick leave for district employees who need to stay home for COVID-19-related reasons like quarantine.

Havre Superintendent Craig Mueller said Assistant Superintendent Brad Moore was instrumental in putting this together and the creation was approved unanimously.

Mueller also provided details about the district's current enrollment report.

He said enrollment is up by about 30 students over all this year based on current numbers, which he is happy abou,t and credits to the schools systems return to five-day-a-week in-person learning.

However, he said, he did have some concerns about the seemingly small kindergarden class this year, as well as concerns about the size of the fourth and fifth grade classes sizes in the future.

He said the kindergarten class is still seeing new enrollments, however, so the numbers may change in the near future and he'll have more information next month.

During the meeting Havre Public Schools Education Foundation President Kyle Leeds said Cavaliers is selling Pony Pride socks for $20 a pair, $5 of which goes to the foundation.

Leeds said he hopes this will be an effective fundraiser, especially now that the foundation cannot sell license plates any more.

A law passed in 2019 required canceling specialty plates, primarily used as fundraisers by nonprofit groups, if they had not been purchased by at least 400 people. That impacted multiple groups around the state including the education foundation, the Havre Wrestling Club, Friends of Beaver Creek Park and St. Jude Thaddeus School.

The board set their planning meeting for 6 p.m. Oct. 26.

The next special board meeting will be Tuesday, Sept 28, at 12:15 p.m. at Robins School Administration Building and the next regular board meeting will be Tuesday, Oct. 12, at 6:30 p.m. at Havre Middle School.