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River Hills School closes temporarily to clean up mold problem
By ANDREW WIND, Courier Staff Write
Friday, August 24, 2007 6:34 AM CDT
Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier - Waterloo,IA,USA
http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2007/08/24/news/breaking_news/doc46cea83cd3147680455461.txt
CEDAR FALLS --- A mold problem is causing River Hills School to temporarily close beginning today, a day after classes began.
River Hills is a school for students with moderate, severe, and profound developmental disabilities operated by Area Education Agency 267.
A message on the school's answering machine and Web site said the mold growth is due to the malfunction of a pneumatic controller in the cooling system. Classes are being suspended while commercial clean-up and air testing are conducted. School will resume when air tests have been completed, with missed days made up later.
River Hills is located at 2700 Grand Blvd.
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Mold Closes Eastern Iowa School
http://www.kwwl.com/News/index.php?ID=14424
A growing problem at one eastern Iowa school causes it to close down for the time being. The principal at River Hills, a special needs school in Cedar Falls, decided to cancel school because of mold. At least one mother who has a student attending, says she's happy the school isn't risking students safety.
Sixteen year old Dallas Harper loves going to school at River Hills, but he won't get that chance Friday. His mother Becky Harper says that's a good thing. She won't risk Dallas' health with a mold problem at the school. "I was glad that they canceled school, because with Dallas' health we have to be so careful with everything for him. He does have asthma and that's one of the things that the mold will cause problems with, especially if someone is allergic to the mold," says Becky Harper.
Becky says she doesn't think Dallas is allergic to mold, but still wants to be careful. She says every couple of years a new ailment pops up for her son. "We never know what's going to trigger something with him. This time of year gets pretty hairy because he gets really wheezy so the mold I'm sure would have exacerbated anything," says Becky Harper.
She adds that its not uncommon for someone with special needs to have health problems, but that the ones Dallas has are worse than many. She says, "He's not able to breathe on his own, so he's ventilator dependent and he has oxygen 24 hours a day." She adds that any disturbance to that could mean big-time trouble, " The slightest thing that's going to compromise his breathing could be the thing that takes him."
River Hills School hired a company to remove the mold. It will perform air quality tests over the weekend. Classes will resume only when the air is deemed safe.
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