Is a 2,000% Financial Rate of Return Possible in One Year in One Classroom?
Classroom Air Quality & Absenteeism
So how many sick days might be saved in a single 180 day school year in a single classroom with 22 students and 1 teacher. Each school building typically reports absenteeism annually. You can go to the state’s reporting website to get prior years absentee rates. Classroom air quality and student absenteeism are closely related topics because the number of student sick days is usually directly related to the school’s level of classroom air quality. A high rate of attendance is 98%, typical is 96% and poor can be as low as 90-92%. The Financial Return of Reducing Classroom Absences depends on how much a school can improve attendance and how much it can save by preventing missed school days.
Calculating the Savings Potential of Fewer Sick Days
Assuming 23 people in the classroom there are 4,140 total attendance days in a 180 day school year. Each 1% of missed attendance represents 41.40 lost school days. Most are from illness, but some will be extended family trips for weddings, funerals or other events. Respiratory illnesses and contagious classroom infections will account for the vast majority of absences.
Improving attendance from 94.5% to 96.5% could make a significant difference. In a classroom with 22 students and one teacher, that improvement would mean 83.8 fewer missed school days combined. This improvement could save an estimated $25,170. The estimate assumes that each missed school day for an elementary student costs families, employers, and insurers a combined $300. This $300 takes into account the number of families where both parents work, and a sick day means the mom or dad has to miss work to care for the sick child. It includes the cost of over the counter medications, the cost of office visits, co-pays, insurance payouts, Medicaid payouts, medical testing costs and prescription drug costs. They also estimated the average cost to the employer for the lost work product that the missing employee did not perform for the employer. Parents with higher salaries actually lost much more than $300. New health insurance has much higher deductibles and co-pays, so savings go directly to the families instead of insurance companies.
The Financial Return of Reducing Classroom Absences
This means saving 83.8 sick days could save families, employers, and insurers about $25,170 if the school reduced annual absenteeism by 2%. A 2% improvement in attendance could generate a first-year return of approximately 20 times the initial investment. The total first-year installation cost for Purifans is about $1,250 per classroom. If the school maintained the same 2% improvement in attendance in Year 2 and beyond, it could save an estimated $25,170 annually. The annual filter replacement cost would be just $168 per classroom. This represents a potential return of approximately 149 times the annual filter cost, or a 14,900% return relative to that cost.
Is 2% the Best Improvement Schools Have Achieved?
No. One school with a history of hidden mold and poor air quality had an attendance rate of 90.2% in 2004. But in 2005 that grew to an attendance rate of 96.24% after installing Purifans throughout their school building. This is a 61% reduction in missed school days, or an average of 11.24 fewer sick days per child. In a classroom with 22 students, the school saved 247.28 sick days compared with the previous year. These savings occurred in each classroom over a single school year. The school also reported a 50% reduction in teacher sick days, and a 70% reduction in logged use of inhalers at the nurses station. With the same teachers, books, and building, NCLB test scores jumped dramatically that same year. You can find the reported results at the end of this blog.
Fewer Allergy Meds Mean Students Learn Much More
The teachers reported that many students stopped using daily allergy medications. They also noted that many students only used their inhalers when they went on field trips to visit a farm. The lack of mind-numbing medicine and missed school days allowed student to be more attentive and keep up with class work. This boosted their foundation for the next year and helped them achieve higher grades and test scores. At another school, a pre-K teacher with 28 students shared her experience in a testimonial video recorded in May, the final month of the school year. She stated, “We have had no respiratory-related illnesses in our classroom this year so far. That is amazing.”
In Texas, School Funding is Based on Attendance and This Offers an additional 268% ROI in Year 1, and 1,995% ROI in Later Years
A school in Texas could also benefit from increased state funding tied to attendance. Schools receive approximately $35–$40 per day based on Average Daily Attendance (ADA). Saving 83.8 school days in a Texas classroom could generate an additional $3,352 in state funding. If the school building had 15 classrooms with 22 students each, the total funding increase could reach $50,280 per year. The additional $3,352 in state funding would more than cover the estimated first-year installation cost of $1,250 per classroom. This would represent a potential 268% return on the cost of installing Purifans. In later years the filter costs are only $168 per classroom giving a 1,995% ROI in later years.