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Apr 3, 2008
Parents demand independent review of mold in modulars
http://www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/greenwich/31335.shtml
By Ken Borsuk, Staff Reporter
Hamilton Avenue parents, charging that the Board of Education and district administration have not been open and transparent, are demanding their own mold expert be allowed to thoroughly examine the modular classrooms their children used for close to three years.
The children were forced out and redistributed last month after mold was discovered in the classrooms. Since then, parents have demanded accountability and feel the board and Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg have not been forthcoming.
“As parents, we need to know what our children have been exposed to,” parent Donna Ortoli said at last Thursday’s Board of Education meeting. She urged the board to allow the parents to bring in an independent, certified industrial hygienist to do a mold test of the modulars.
On Tuesday, Board Chairman Nancy Weissler told the Post that letting an independent expert come in hadn’t been ruled out and is being considered. This is a slight softening from last Thursday, when Board of Education Vice Chairwoman Leslie Moriarty said the existing testing is already high quality and promised parents would be “satisfied” with the findings.
“We welcome any specialist you’d like to bring with the specialists that have been in the building and done the testing to review the protocols, the methods and the results,” Ms. Moriarty said.
Ms. Ortoli challenged this, asking how the parents could know the test results were gained through proper scientific method. She questioned the board’s objection to a second opinion.
Ms. Moriarty said the board was getting a second opinion and would be open to scrutiny by the public.
Ms. Weissler added the administration was also working with the town’s director of environmental services, Michael Long, to review test results.
“You can make this easy or you can make it hard, and the harder you make it the more suspect your testing appears and the harder we will persevere,” Ms. Ortoli said. “If our tests show anything different from your tests, you and the town will have a very huge lawsuit on your hands.”
In the meantime, construction of the Hamilton Avenue School building, which was supposed to be open by last September, continues. Officials at Worth Construction, the project’s general contractor, have said the project will be complete by late May. Members of the project’s building committee, though, have said it could be June at the earliest before there is substantial completion.
A representative from Worth had been scheduled to appear at Tuesday’s committee meeting, but Frank Mazza, committee chairman, said that person “respectfully declined” to show. Mr. Mazza cited recent press coverage of the delays as a probable reason for the company not attending the public meeting.
Mr. Mazza said there has been “substantial progress” in the construction, but several committee members are dissatisfied with the progress of repairing leaks in the garage and the pace of inspections for a prematurely sealed floor and a kick wall. The next building committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. in the Havemeyer Building.
“Accountability is what the public wants regarding the modulars,” parent Laura DiBella told the school board last week. “It might not be what this administration wants, but the board answers to the public, not to this administration.”
Ms. DiBella said if the board had “truly acted quickly in removing the students from the modulars as soon as mold was discovered,” it would have done it in January, when, she claimed, air conditioners were turned on to get rid of the “mold smell,” or last November, when, she said, workers removed “stained and damaged” ceiling tiles and put plastic sheeting up before a reading event at the school.
Ms. DiBella said she had been told it was “routine maintenance” but she wasn’t convinced. Ms. DiBella said parents want to see the signed work orders so they can know whom to hold accountable.
“Honesty, regardless of how upsetting it may be to hear, is much easier to swallow than deception and deniability,” Ms. DiBella said at the meeting. “Honesty raises credibility, regardless of where it leads.”
On Tuesday, Assistant Superintendent of Schools Susan Wallerstein told the Post she had “no knowledge” of either the January or November incident to which Ms. DiBella referred. The board recently made public a series of work orders at the modulars, and the only ceiling tile replacement listed from last November or December is said to have been needed because of leaking caused by a frozen roof. There is no record of the air conditioners being turned on, an event Ms. DiBella said she witnessed personally.
Several parents said through the state “Tools for Schools” program, established to insure students have environmentally safe schools, the air quality at the modulars should have been checked regularly and the building checked for mold. However, the modulars were not checked, despite the state offering its services two times. PTA member Mina Bibeault said this was the responsibility of the Board of Education.
“Don’t sit here and say you didn’t know,” Ms. Bibeault told the board, citing an incident last fall where students had buckets by their desks to catch water dripping from the ceiling. “Fess up and be honest so we can all move forward. We’re not going to let this go.”
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© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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