What would it take for Baltimore city to put carbon monoxide monitors in all city schools and prevent children from being sickened? About $250,000 according to our back-of-the-envelope calculations.

((UPDATE: Turns out it’s much cheaper, and the city is going to do it, they announced today. Quick action.))

Potentially-deadly carbon monoxide leaked into Dickey Hill Elementary/Middle School Tuesday, causing six students to become ill and one to be taken to the hospital. This follows a Feb. 8 incident at the same Southwest Baltimore school, in which five adults and one child were briefly hospitalized.

As the Baltimore Sun reported today, the Carbon monoxide problems at Dickey Hill are fueling the fires of elected officials and city schools advocates who have been pushing for more state aid to help the city’s aging and dilapidated schools.

The budget proposed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley  includes $250 million for state school construction, but city school officials and the ACLU say Baltimore city schools alone need $2.8 billion for renovation. The ACLU argued in a July report that a new funding mechanism is needed to satisfy the capital needs of schools across the state.

School officials acknowledge that for years the system did not keep up with repairs of its buildings, which are on average about 40 years old.

But what about the more focused question of what it would cost to put carbon monoxide in city schools?

We estimated it would take more than  a quarter of a million dollars to put that equipment in Baltimore’s 160 200 schools, based on what was reported in Connecticut.

In January, carbon monoxide leaking into a fifth grade classroom in Waterbury, Conn. sent  32 students and staffers to the hospital.

Responding to the problem, according to wfsb.com,  the superintendent of Waterbury Schools “ordered all of its buildings to install temporary CO detectors, with more advanced systems on the way at a price tag of about $50,000 for all 30 schools.”

Baltimore has about five times as many schools as Waterbury, so that’s where we came up with the $250,000 figure.

The Sun says city schools chief operating officer Keith Scroggins told them Baltimore does not have  carbon monoxide detectors in the schools “because it would be expensive to install them in all buildings.”