Breathe Schools · Funded by ARPA-H: Nominate a school for BREATHE

We are inviting schools to join the next cohort of BREATHE, a study building evidence on healthier school air. Parents, teachers, and administrators can submit a nomination.

Nominate a school Apply as a district

Dec 4

Priority deadline, 2026

2 min

To nominate a school

3 years

Of participation for a district

To apply. Equipment, installation, and support are covered

See it

Classrooms that monitor and respond to their own air

1
Sense
Sensors sample classroom air continuously, mainly from the return air.
2
Assess
Software reads what the sensors find and decides whether the building should respond.
3
Respond
The building adjusts ventilation, filtration, and air cleaning automatically.

Why now

The goal: cleaner air, fewer sick days, healthier kids

The question

The research is testing whether classrooms that monitor and respond to their own air can reduce respiratory illness and absenteeism.

The next cohort is open

Applications are open now. Districts that apply by the priority deadline are considered for the first round of on-site visits in January 2027.

Every school benefits

Schools are split into two groups that take turns, and every participating school receives the intervention during the study.

What gets easier

The program does the heavy lifting

Installed and serviced for you

The program installs and services the equipment and coordinates family communications.

Budget and equipment provided

Equipment, installation, and program support are covered. For eligible districts, study-related increases in energy use may also be supplemented.

You keep the data and much of the equipment

Districts get classroom air data throughout the three years. Afterward, the air cleaners and indoor air quality sensors stay with the district.

Safe to say yes

Nominating commits you to nothing

The program runs at district level, so the team approaches the district that runs the school you nominate.

Anyone can nominate

Parents, teachers, nurses, school leaders, and neighbors aged 18 or older can nominate a school. No permission is required, and it takes about two minutes.

Who can take part

Public school districts in the contiguous United States with at least two schools serving middle-school grades, central heating and cooling with return air ducting that serves classrooms, and no major construction planned in the study window.

Student privacy

The program does not ask schools for student-level attendance records, only aggregate, anonymised attendance by day and grade level. Family questionnaires and lab samples are voluntary.

Key dates

The next cohort

1
Now
Applications and nominations are open.
2
November 19
Live information session, Thursday at 1pm ET / 10am PT.
3
December 4, 2026
Priority deadline, Friday at 11:59pm PT. Applications continue afterward as space allows.
4
January 2027
On-site technical visits for selected districts.

Nominate a school Apply as a district Nomine una escuela en español

Why trust us · Who is behind it

Led by Poppy Health, funded by ARPA-H

Breathe Schools is part of SCALE (Strategic Control of bioAerosols in Learning Environments), led by Poppy Health, Inc. and funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) under Agreement No. 140D042590031. It is run by more than 160 scientists, engineers, and education and building experts, from organizations including UCSF, the Harvard Wyss Institute, Penn State, the University of Colorado, and the University of Minnesota.

Primary.Health is a subcontractor on the Poppy Health team, one of the performer teams in ARPA-H’s BREATHE program, and provides the public health workflow around the detection: school health reporting, symptom tracking, testing, and outcomes measurement.

Pilot highlights

Getting a Head Start on air quality

Watch the highlights from our air safety pilot at 12 Head Start centers in Oakland, California, a region frequently affected by wildfire smoke: indoor air assessment, improvement, and the health impact on schools.

Read about the pilot

When Primary.Health integrated Poppy into our safety program, it made perfect sense. Poppy’s air monitoring system is an easy and unobtrusive way to visualize airflow and keep classrooms safe. Changes as simple as repositioning air filters can make a big difference.

Susanne DeRisi | Librarian and COVID testing program coordinator Synergy School in San Francisco

NEWSROOM

All the latest Primary.Health updates

San Francisco Examiner

New building system aims to detect spread of disease before symptoms appear

Citing a nationwide rise in several infectious diseases, two health tech companies plan to test a new airborne-pathogen-detection and air-purification system at a San Francisco school later this year. Primary.Health and Poppy Health Inc., headquartered in San Francisco and Winter Park, Fla., respectively, said they’ve created a product that analyzes genetic information that can determine what pathogens are in the air in buildings. When certain pathogens are detected, the buildings’ HVAC systems are triggered to filter them out.

Read the story

Press release

Primary.Health Expands School Health Mission with ARPA-H-Funded BREATHE-SCALE Project

Primary.Health will support Poppy Health, Inc., an authority in indoor air technologies for sustainable and healthy buildings that was recently selected as a performer team in the ARPA-H BREATHE program. The ARPA-H BREATHE program aims to revolutionize public health by advancing our ability to monitor and improve indoor air quality and forecast emerging health threats.

Read the release