Air filters in Dachau schools and day-care centers

Created: 2022-01-29 09:27

Air filters will also soon be installed in Dachau classrooms (symbolic picture).

© dpa

Parents should breathe a sigh of relief: By the end of February at the latest, air filters should finally be in Dachau daycare centers and primary and secondary schools.

Dachau –

After some back and forth, the Dachau city council decided in September last year to purchase the air purifiers – in the schools for all classrooms from grades one to six.

The devices were then ordered in December.

At the end of February, the air filters in the classrooms of the elementary and middle schools should be in place.

This acquisition was preceded by a lengthy controversy.

Because in the summer, the city council was still overwhelmed by concerns about the high cost of the air filters.

There were also doubts as to whether the devices actually work effectively.

And even with the delivery, not everything is running like clockwork.

"The delivery should actually take place in these days," Mayor Florian Hartmann (SPD) informed on Wednesday in the main and finance committee of the city council.

Then came a big but: "Apparently there are manufacturing problems in China." That's why students and teachers have to wait until the end of February.

"But we get higher-quality devices because they are available more quickly." The air filters that are to come are even quieter, "and the price remains the same".

Pedagogues at schools in particular will be happy to hear that the volume is lower.

Because the volume of the devices had also been heatedly debated.

According to the occupational health and safety guidelines, only air cleaners with values ​​of up to 35 decibels would be permitted, but the Free State’s subsidy guidelines permitted the purchase of air filters

which are loud up to 40 decibels.

The concern that teachers might switch off the devices because of the noise was not completely eliminated.

This issue has probably resolved itself.

The air filters in the day-care centers will also be in place by the end of February.

Hartmann: "The contract was awarded."

The financial side is less pleasing: the air purifiers for the classrooms cost 285,000 euros, the day-care equipment 154,000 euros.

State grants of 104,000 and 54,000 euros have been announced.

Far less than the 50 percent funding that had been publicly promised comes from the Free State.

Mayor Hartmann gives the reason: "The purchase sums include maintenance for three years, but the Free State does not pay for maintenance."

PETRA SCHAFFLIK