(WSIL) -- One local administration is investing to make in-person learning safer.
COVID-19 has administrators across the country trying to adapt to make in person learning as safe as possible. But in Kentucky, it's another safety policy that McCracken County Superintendent, Steve Carter, is working around.
"...we also have laws and guidelines that require us to keep classroom doors shut while students are in the classes. So you know that makes it even more difficult to get fresh air into a building."
Brad Cleaver, the VP of sales for Medformance, says schools are looking for another tool to limit the spread of something called an airborne infectious agent.
"When you look at how viruses and bacteria and things that are transferred, it's in the air, and we're helping to clean the air."
"Airborne infectious agents which includes COVID, but will also help well past the pandemic stage with the flu and other airborne infectious agents that hopefully will provide just a safer learning environment for our students," says Carter.
Carter has worked with Medformance to bring air dissinfectant devices to every classroom in the school district by October 1st.
You can think of it as a fancy air filter, even though it's technically not.
"The beauty of this technology, it does not require filtration to be effective. The method of action works with coils, and when air flows over the coils, it deactivates and destroys pathogens. Not only COVID-19 pathogens but also allergens, and other pathogens that may cause asthma or other irritants that would be in the air," says Cleaver.
Carter says the longterm maintenance costs will be low, but it required an initial investment of nearly 1 million dollars.
"With the federal ESSER Funds, we had the opportunity to put this into our plan for those funds to provide again another layer that we feel is a very important layer of mitigation."
"And the overall goal is to add to a layered approach that our administrators and the communities are doing everything we can do to try to keep kids in school, and that's the overall goal and it's just, again it's another layer that I think will help put folks at ease, and as we're all in the same mission and the same goal and that's to keep the kids and staff in school," says Cleaver.
Cleaver says those purifiers are already in classrooms across the country, but unique in western Kentucky.
Initially, Carter plans to put them in classrooms only, but is also considering other high traffic areas around campus.
For more information on the nature of the devices being installed, click .
