While the Ministry of National Education and the unions in the sector are meeting on Tuesday February 7 to discuss the planned reductions in the health protocol at school, a subject is regularly debated: installing CO2 sensors in schools is it useful to fight against the spread of Covid-19? These small devices measure the presence of carbon dioxide in the air and therefore the need to ventilate the room.
Currently, according to the Ministry of National Education, a third of schools with more than two classes have at least one. This is the case for 40% of colleges and 75% of high schools. Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer admitted in early January that the deployment of these devices was “completely insufficient”mdespite a state aid fund of 20 million euros to help local authorities finance their purchase. What do teachers who have them in their class think of their usefulness? franceinfo asked them the question.
Teachers’ observations are different, depending on the size of the class or the number of students. “The CO2 level rises very quickly in a classroom. It takes between thirty and forty-five minutes to really be in the red”, testifies for example a teacher. His colleague has a much shorter deadline: “After fifteen minutes, the air begins to be polluted.” Another teacher says she has more leeway: “After an hour and a half, it tells me that the class will have to be aired out.” Most of these teachers claim to follow the indications of the CO2 sensor.
“I thought my class was well ventilated and that the CO2 level never rose. In fact, very quickly, we manage to get the detector to be in the red!”, is surprised Frédérique, director of a nursery school in the Eure. The small device, provided by his town hall ten days ago, has completely changed his habits:
“It completely changed our way of seeing and airing the class. I think it’s essential in all classes.”
Frédérique, director of a kindergarten in Eureat franceinfo
Unfortunately, in this season opening the windows wide has rapid consequences on the comfort of work. “There are times when we have to fall to 14 degrees. The students sometimes tell me ‘there, mistress, I’m cold’. So we close the windows.” Despite everything, the sensor was almost a revelation for this kindergarten director, especially since at this level the little ones are not masked. “It should have been put in place from the start. We would have avoided a lot of contamination.”
This is the objective: to ventilate the classes to reduce the circulation of the virus. However, some teachers doubt the effectiveness of these sensors. “That didn’t prevent having cases in the class. The month of January was quite chaotic in terms of absences. We had a lot of infected students”says Chloé, who teaches kindergarten in Val-de-Marne and installed a device provided by her town hall in early January. “Despite these precautions, it was not enough.”
Others, on the contrary, find CO2 sensors very effective: “I have students who had Covid-19 in my class but there was no superinfection with other students”, testifies Christophe professor of CE1/CE2 in Isère. He bought a sensor himself in January 2021, seeing that the mayor of his town did not believe in its usefulness at all: “We have absolutely nothing restrictive at school. It suited everyone not to deal with the issue of air treatment and aerosolization of Covid-19.”
However, the CO2 sensor remains only an indicator, like an air quality thermometer. He can’t do anything in rooms that aren’t or aren’t well ventilated, like canteens or nap dormitories in kindergarten.