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An article by the managing editor of Bear Facts, the student newspaper for May Whitney School, Lake Zurich, IL. Used with permission, For any further distribution, permission must be obtained
directly from Tim Ekl, Managing Editor
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"Students at May Whitney may never see the inside of their building again, if all goes according to plan."
May Whitney closed, students moved
By Tim Ekl
Students at May Whitney may never see the inside of their building again, if all goes according to plan.
The elementary school was closed after a toxic form of mold, Stachybotrys, was found in a piece of drywall following a day and a half of flooding in the school. As a result, the students have been relocated to the Annex. District 95 administration has plans to eventually demolish May Whitney, according to Dr. Brian Knutson, superintendent.
“We do not intend ever to reoccupy May Whitney,” Knutson said. “We intend to stay [at the Annex] for the entire school year. We do not want to move twice.”
Instead, Knutson said, the District intends eventually to tear down May Whitney and build a replacement elementary school. This, however, may not happen until 2011, so until then, May Whitney students will be doing their studying in the Annex.
This is not the first time May Whitney has had a flooding problem; according to Knutson, the school has flooded three times over the past 15 years.
As such, the recommendation to close May Whitney was not exactly a surprise to the school board or the community. Knutson presented a similar plan to the school board in late June that involved also tearing down the Annex.
In order to facilitate the move, the district delayed the start of school for May Whitney students until after Labor Day. Teachers and parent volunteers, as well as community churches and groups, spent four days moving materials from May Whitney to the Annex and repainted classrooms that will be used.
“The community coming together has been huge,” Ann Minden, mother of a fifth-grader at May Whitney, said. “There’s a lot of people doing a lot of work.”
The Annex was open to volunteers for a period of four days. According to Knutson, each of the nine schools in the district were represented by parent or teacher volunteers.
At present, there are no definite plans to make up the time May Whitney students lost. According to Knutson, the state has no requirements to add extra days to the year in order to meet a minimum, as the rest of the district was in attendance.
So far, Shadow Vahooman, a mold expert contracted by District 95, has found only one spore of Stachybotrys in May Whitney. According to Vahooman, the school would have been safe if the district had sealed off a single hallway.
Vahooman conducted air quality testing throughout both May Whitney and the Annex. The process, which compares large volumes of air inside the schools to the air outside, turned up no unusual results other than a slightly elevated Stachybotrys level.
Although the district assures parents the Annex is completely safe, some parents aren’t so sure.
“I’m about 75% confident…that I can send my kids back to school this week,” said Colleen, a mother of three May Whitney students who refused to give her last name. “A lot of the volunteers on Thursday were appalled…by the condition [of the building].”
Knutson, however, remains confident the district has taken appropriate steps.
“We probably closed more than we needed to close, but we didn't want to take that risk,” Knutson said. “This is an emotional issue. [These are] our children.” |
