The smell hits Kitty Hernlen the second she walks into the classroom at Bayvale Elementary School.

“Sniff,” she said to Scottie Paschal.

“Yeah, smell that,” he said.

“It’s in here somewhere,” Hernlen said.

They quickly track down the source of the floral smell, an air freshener in a cabinet, and confiscate it as a potential trigger to an asthma attack.

Hernlen, an assistant professor of respiratory therapy at Georgia Health Sciences University, is using a $30,000 grant from the W.G. Raoul Foundation in Atlanta to help Bayvale and schools in Warren and Emanuel counties in east central Georgia improve their indoor air quality and potentially help control student asthma.

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Gov. Brian Kemp enteres the Senate at the Capitol in Atlanta on Sine Die, Friday, April 4, 2025, the final day of the legislative session. (Arvin Temkar / AJC)

Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com