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Health hazards denied for mold-infested school buildings - a typical school district stance that can place the public at risk. The unsuspecting public rarely understands that school mold testing is orchestrated to reassure, in many cases. Media articles, like the one below, simply amplify the reassurances, without delving into whether these are based on sound science. The children and teachers remain ignorant of what they have already been exposed to, while health departments and government health agencies fail to protect the public from the extensive public health menaces found in damp school buildings. The foxes guarding the chickencoop are simply not sufficient.
No mold hazard found at Ham Ave. modulars
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/local/scn-gt-hamavemar12,0,3105612.story
By Andrew Shaw
Staff Writer
Published March 12 2008
A more in-depth air quality test at the mold-plagued Hamilton Avenue School temporary buidling revealed no health hazards, according to school officials.
Rounds of air quality tests have been going on at the temporary modular building behind Western Middle School. School officials discovered mold throughout the building in late February and closed the building for the rest of the school year, which displaced Hamilton Avenue students to other district schools.
Quick tests taken soon after the discovery revealed no air quality issues related to the mold. But one of several tests that take longer to perform revealed a higher level of nontoxic mold spores, but not high enough to be a health hazard, according to officials.
Because more testing is needed before items from the school can be safely removed from the contaminated site, that will delay when architects and engineers who are to investigate the cause of the mold can enter the structure and do their work. Until that happens, officials won't know the full extent of the mold problem and the type of remediation that will be necessary, school district officials told the Board of Estimate and Taxation's budget committee last night during a Town Hall meeting.
"We're talking about additional tests that need to be done," said Nancy Weissler, chairman of the Board of Education, adding that the testing will delay remediation by another week.
Kim Eves, director of communication, said that by early next week the district hopes to know which remediation method is needed, if any, to rid the building of mold. The process can be done either with a labor-intensive, piece-by-piece cleaning or by a process that releases cleaning agents into the air to cover everything inside.
The ballpark costs for remediation and displacing students are expected to be given at tomorrow's Board of Education work session.
Eves said that although tests so far have shown there is no health danger, the district needs to be cautious and keep students away from the school.
"You're erring on the side of safety. We know there's mold throughout the building," Eves said. Complete air quality test results have been posted on the district Web site.
For now, consultants have told them remediation will take roughly four months, officials said. The school district has also asked Turner Construction Co. to provide cost estimates to demolish the modular structures and acquire other ones, said Sue Wallerstein, assistant superintendent of business services.
The transition of Hamilton Avenue School students and staff to their six new host schools has gone relatively smoothly, according to principal Damaris Rau. School resumed on Monday after classes were canceled for Hamilton Avenue last week.
Rau, who along with assistant principal Deborah Kline has visited each of the six schools daily since the move, said busing is still an issue.
"Some of the rides are really long," Rau said, adding that routes changes are likely to help shorten the commute. Hamilton Avenue School students were added to other schools' bus routes as part of the displacement.
There have been some positives to the massive change, including students having access to larger school buildings than they had with their temporary modular.
"The kids are so happy," Rau said. Fourth- and fifth-graders relocated to Western Middle School are reaping the benefits of a larger cafeteria, she said.
"They are in awe of all the selections they have. They're holding up the lines just so they can look at everything."
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The town's magnet school lottery scheduled for tomorrow has been delayed again, in the wake of the problems at the Hamilton Avenue School. The new date for the lottery is April 10, and results will be mailed by April 18.
-- Hoa Nguyen contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2008, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
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Letter to the Editor submitted 3/12/08 by SMH:
In reading online about the extensive mold problems in the Hamilton Avenue School modulars, it was apparent that this school district is rushing to assure the parents and community that though there is mold throughout the buildings, it is not a problem because it is not airborne. This reassurance has no basis in sound science, as air testing for spores is known to be flawed on many levels and does not even measure the components (including mycotoxins and other poisonous and inflammatory emissions) that cause the greatest hazard to human health. Further, one of the most toxigenic molds and common molds found in consistently damp schools, stachybotrys, produces heavy spores and is a sticky mold that rarely is detected in the elevated spore traps.
For more information, visit www.schoolmoldhelp.org and read "District Testing" in the About Testing area, an article explaining why testing coordinated by school attorneys and risk managers has a built-in conflict of interest. Pathophysiology of Illness Caused by Exposure to Water-Damaged Buildings (Shoemaker & Lin, 2008), an article in our Sick Building Symptoms section, notes that "counting spores is essentially a worthless endeavor".
As Director of The Center for School Mold Help, I am well aware that these reassurances are subjecting the community to the false notion that children and teachers, occupying moldy portable classrooms, could not possibly have become ill from them.
Sincerely,
Susan Brinchman
Center for School Mold Help
www.schoolmoldhelp.org
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To read an earlier article on this school's problems go to http://www.schoolmoldhelp.org/content/view/1098/33/
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