Giving Compass' Take:

• At Business Insider, Susie Neilson investigates the added dangers of schools' faulty ventilation systems as districts consider reopening during COVID-19.

• How are schools' faulty ventilation systems yet another example of gaps in health precautions across the U.S.? What can you do to help encourage policymakers to keep children safe as they consider the status of education this fall?

• Read about the correlation between air pollution and COVID deaths, another reason to address schools' faulty ventilator systems.

Three years ago, teacher Kerri Landry found a hole in the wall of her middle-school classroom in Coventry, Rhode Island. It looked strange, so Landry took a flash photo of the inside of the hole — and captured a troubling image.

"The entire inside of that wall was all black mold, the entire thing," she told Business Insider.

School custodians patched up the hole and treated the mold, but Landry said she's seen mold in other classrooms, too. She thinks it may be a sign that her school — the Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School — shouldn't bring students back at all.

"This has been an ongoing issue for years," Landry said, adding that she's recently been telling anyone who will listen that the school district must fix its ventilation systems before students return. She feels strongly about that for her own safety as well as that of her students and two youngest sons, who attend a high school in the district.

However, Landry's school district decided on Monday to do a phased reopening, with all grades slated to be back by October 13.

Landry's school isn't exceptional: Research shows that air quality is a major issue in tens of thousands of schools across the US. A June report from the Government Accountability Office estimated that 41% of districts nationwide, or 36,000 schools, need major upgrades to their HVAC systems.

Before the pandemic, poor air quality in schools was problematic because it impeded kids' learning and lowered their test scores. But now, faulty HVAC systems are even more concerning since they could facilitate the spread of the coronavirus.

Read the full article about schools' faulty ventilation systmes by Susie Neilson at Business Insider.