Why Don't All Schools Have Carbon Monoxide Detection? Breaking Down the Barriers in CO-related School Safety

Even before our Five-Year Snapshot revealed that 103 carbon monoxide incidents poisoned hundreds of students and staff, the question I heard most often was: "If CO detection saves lives and the technology exists, why isn't it required in every single daycare, school, and college building?"

It's a fair question. And frankly, one that keeps me up at night.

As a mother whose sons survived CO poisoning at their daycare, I've spent years trying to answer this exact question. What I've discovered is a web of outdated assumptions, bureaucratic inertia, and systemic barriers that have left our children vulnerable to a completely preventable threat.

The Dangerous Assumption That's Hurting Kids

The biggest barrier isn't money or technology—it's assumptions.

Walk into any code hearing about CO alarm requirements in schools, and you'll hear the same refrain: "We only need detectors in buildings with fuel-burning appliances." This assumption is not just wrong, it's deadly.

Our Five-Year Snapshot showed that:

• 8% of incidents were caused by building-level ventilation failures that can affect ANY building

• 24% involved portable sources like generators or idling vehicles that can impact schools regardless of their heating systems

• Negative air pressure can pull CO from neighboring buildings, underground sources, or nearby equipment

  
  

The Osceola, Iowa, incident I wrote about earlier? Perfect example. "Negative air pressure" caused CO buildup in a school that officials probably assumed was "safe" because of how they categorized their building systems.

Here's what most don't understand: Carbon monoxide doesn't care about your building's fuel source. It cares about physics, air pressure, and proximity to any combustion source within a dangerous radius of your school.

Yet most legislation (and building code) still focuses only on buildings with on-site fuel-burning appliances, leaving thousands of schools in a dangerous gray area where protection isn't required.

The Money Problem (And Why It's Not What You Think)

Yes, funding is a real barrier. But not in the way most people assume.

A basic interconnected CO detection system for an average elementary school costs about the same as a few laptops. We're not talking about millions of dollars here. The real funding problem is more complex:

Competing priorities in tight budgets. When schools are choosing between new textbooks and CO alarms, textbooks often win because the risk of CO seems abstract until it happens to you.

Grant funding that misses the mark. Most safety grants focus on "security" (think cameras and locks) rather than environmental hazards like carbon monoxide. The grant categories themselves reflect our sideways priorities.

No dedicated federal funding stream. Unlike fire safety equipment, there's no consistent federal push or funding mechanism specifically for CO detection in schools.

The irony? Schools spend more money on single CO incidents—emergency response, hospital bills, legal fees, substitute staff, building remediation—than they would have spent on prevention.

Trapped by Outdated Narratives

Carbon monoxide safety in schools is literally decades behind fire safety, and our laws and codes reflect that gap.

Most CO codes and regulations were written for residential settings. They assume small spaces, single families, and situations where everyone knows each other. Schools are complex environments with hundreds of people, multiple building systems, and staff who may not recognize symptoms in others.

The language itself is outdated. Codes still reference "fuel-burning appliances" as if we're still in 1985, before we understood negative air pressure, building science, and the dozens of ways CO can infiltrate modern educational environments.

No comprehensive federal standards. Fire safety has clear, nationwide standards for schools. CO detection? It's a patchwork of state and local requirements that vary wildly and often leave dangerous gaps.

I've sat in legislative meetings where lawmakers literally asked, "But don't all schools already have this?" The assumption that protection exists when it doesn't is killing our advocacy efforts.

The School Safety Training Gap That's Hiding in Plain Sight

Here's something that shocked me during my research: There are no training requirements for educators about carbon monoxide.

Think about that. Teachers are required to know CPR, how to use an EpiPen, and fire evacuation procedures. But carbon monoxide recognition and response? Optional at best, non-existent at worst.

The symptoms look like everything else. Headaches, nausea, fatigue, confusion...these are the symptoms of a dozen different things kids experience on any given school day. Without training, staff miss the early warning signs that could save lives.

No protocols exist. Even schools with CO detectors often lack clear protocols for what to do when an alarm sounds. I've seen schools where staff didn't even know they had CO detectors, let alone how to respond to them.

Front-line staff are left out. Custodians, cafeteria workers, and maintenance staff (the people most likely to first encounter CO sources) rarely receive any CO-related training despite being on the front lines of prevention.

Our Aging School Infrastructure Crisis

The average school building in America is over 25 years old. Many are much older. And here's the problem: these buildings are being retrofitted with modern systems that create modern risks the original designers never anticipated.

Mismatched systems create danger. An older building gets a new, powerful kitchen exhaust system, but no makeup air system to compensate. Result? Negative air pressure which can pull CO from anywhere.

Maintenance gets deferred. When budgets are tight, routine HVAC maintenance gets pushed off. Poorly maintained systems are more likely to produce or distribute CO.

Upgrades happen piecemeal. Schools don't get complete building overhauls. They get new boilers, updated ventilation, sealed windows—but rarely the comprehensive approach needed to ensure all systems work safely together.

Building science wasn't taught. Many school facility managers learned their trade before we understood negative air pressure, building envelope science, and indoor air quality. They're managing 21st-century risks with 20th-century knowledge.

The Transparency Problem Nobody Talks About

Want to know which schools in your state have CO detection? Good luck.

No centralized database exists. Unlike fire safety equipment, there's no shared tracking of which schools have CO protection, what type, or when it was last tested.

Requirements vary wildly by state. Some states require detectors in all schools. Others are only in schools with boilers. Still others have no requirements at all. Parents can't easily find out where their children are protected.

Incident reporting is inconsistent. Our Five-Year Snapshot had to rely on press reports because there's no comprehensive tracking system for CO incidents in schools. We literally don't know the full scope of the problem.

Conflicting information online. Try searching for CO requirements in schools and you'll find outdated codes, conflicting interpretations, and no single authoritative source for current, accurate information.

This lack of transparency makes it impossible for parents to advocate effectively, for policymakers to understand the scope of the problem, or for schools to learn from each other's experiences.

Breaking Through the Barriers

These barriers are real, but they're not insurmountable. Here's what needs to happen:

Update the assumptions. CO alarms should be required in ALL educational facilities, regardless of heating source. Period.

Create dedicated funding streams. Federal and state safety grants should specifically include environmental hazards like CO, not just security threats.

Modernize the language. Laws and codes need to reflect current building science and the realities of modern and aging school environments.

Mandate training. CO recognition and response should be required training for all school staff, just like fire, lockdown, and weather safety.

Prioritize building science. Facility managers need ongoing education about how modern systems interact and create risks.

Demand transparency. We need databases, reporting requirements, and clear information about protection levels in every school.

The Bottom Line

These barriers explain why we're still having preventable CO incidents in schools five years after my sons were poisoned. They explain why elementary schools, where our youngest and most vulnerable students spend their days, account for 34% of all school CO incidents.

But understanding the barriers also shows us the path forward. Every one of these obstacles has a solution. What we need is the collective will to implement those solutions before more families go through what mine did.

Our Five-Year Snapshot documented 103 incidents that poisoned 579 people. How many more incidents will it take before we decide our children's health and lives are worth more than outdated assumptions and bureaucratic convenience?

The technology exists. The knowledge exists. The only thing missing is the commitment to use them.

What barriers have you encountered when advocating for CO protection in your community? Share your experiences and help us build a comprehensive picture of what's standing in the way of universal protection.