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The floor of one classroom was so damp that one teacher fell through the floor of one of the portables rented from Modular Space Corporation (Mod Space), a Pennsylvania company, according to the husband of a teacher! (SMH)
“I think shutting down the portables was appropriate,” said Mark Johnson, whose wife taught in one of the SFE portable classrooms...
A teacher fell through the floor last year and every time it rained the teachers had to call maintenance for buckets, Johnson said.
It’s no revelation that there was mold in the buildings. His wife still suffers from mold symptoms, he said.
Johnson wants someone to be accountable for the future, he said." (Coon Rapids Herald)
District tries to answer portable questions without Mod Space reply
Coon Rapids Herald - Coon Rapids,MN,USA
After a mold problem was found in the portable classrooms at two elementary schools last week, Independent School District 15 parents wanted answers. ...
District tries to answer portable questions without Mod Space reply
http://abcnewspapers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=846&Itemid=1
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
by Tammy Staff, writer
After a mold problem was found in the portable classrooms at two elementary schools last week, Independent School District 15 parents wanted answers.
Unfortunately, the only questions district officials could answer were what they have done to get the nearly 500 students out of the portable classrooms.
The intent of the Oct. 30 special school board meeting was to have a response from Modular Space Corporation (Mod Space), the Pennsylvania company that leased the portable classrooms to the district, said Board chairman David Anderson.
“We are still waiting for Mod Space,” he said.
The company’s assessment team plans to be in the district Nov. 1 to review the situation, said Anderson.
At the meeting, parents were given the time line of repairs and when and how the mold was discovered at St. Francis Elementary School (SFE) Oct. 18.
When a sub-contractor for Mod Space came out to replace a wet exterior panel, district maintenance staff insisted on seeing what was under the panel.
They cut a six-inch hole and then made a larger hole, said Tom Larson, district community education and building services director.
What they found was the window sill plate was black and wood so soft a finger could push through it.
When someone went through the floor of a portable, the district maintenance staff cut through the floor, which had documented soft spots, and found more mold.
The district has had problems with leaks in these leased buildings from the beginning, according to Superintendent Ed Saxton.
Although the leasing company, formerly GE Modular Space, had a cracked window replaced, the window was not caulked afterwards, Saxton said.
The portable buildings have also had water leaking in through the roofs, windows and down into the siding.
Mold tests by Institute for Environment Assessment (IEA, Inc.), Brooklyn Center, have come back positive.
IEA tested the portable classrooms a number of times, but it never penetrated the walls, said Larson.
Previous tests indicated there was more mold in the outside air than inside the portables, he said.
After the discovery of mold at SFE, the district Oct. 26 checked out the Cedar Creek Community School fourth- and fifth-grade portable classrooms, which also come from Mod Space, and found indications of mold.
Although the problem does not appear to be as extensive as at SFE, the students were moved out of the portable classrooms.
Kids on the move
With mold in their classrooms students at SFE and CCCS had to be moved.
SFE’s six third-grade sections, with a total of 132 students, were combined into five sections to allow the remaining third-grade teacher to be the math specialist for the building.
The SFE classes have taken over the rooms used by the reading, math and enrichment specialists.
The specialists are now in the school’s two gyms, staff lunchroom and offices.
With the gyms converted into classrooms, the physical education program has moved outdoors. The lunchroom will also be used a gym when available and students could be using the nearby St. Francis Middle School’s gyms.
After having their special program, such as music and art, the fourth-graders are being bused to the Sandhill Center for the Arts, five miles away in Bethel.
A math specialist and special education specialists go with them.
The CCCS students, more than 200, have been moved into the school’s science lab, staff lunch room and school gyms.
Parent concerns
After her first day at Sandhill Center for the Arts, SFE fourth-grader Arianna Untereker had mixed feelings.
Some of the things she likes while other things she dislikes, said mom Angi Untereker.
She doesn’t like the schedule because it’s not how it used to be. Their whole day changed, Untereker said.
Arianna also doesn’t like that they are away from the rest of her school and the rest of her friends, she said.
The students are also missing a half-hour of class time because they have to leave Sandhill at 3:30 p.m. to make it back to SFE to catch their bus home.
Arianna does like her new classroom, which smells good, said the Oak Grove mom.
But Arianna is more emotional and saddened, she said.
As a mom, Untereker said she is worried what will happen with the kids’ grades as a result of the upheaval.
“Hopefully, they will settle in and be fine,” she said.
As a parent, Untereker is frustrated at the situation.
The water problems have been ongoing for a year and a half; why didn’t it get fixed, she said.
While she is thankful the students have a safe and healthy place to go, she is frustrated it had to come down to this, said Untereker.
Parent Shannon Mart said she needs to know her child is getting a good education in a safe environment. Their education is at stake.
While parent Ken Sonnenfeld has no doubt his son is going to get a good education because of the teachers, he wants to know if the district still paying the lease on the portable classrooms, he said.
The district has stopped payment on its last payment, said Larson.
Several parents wanted to know why the district can’t put the students in the empty classrooms at the middle school or reopen the former Cedar Elementary School in Oak Grove.
There are no empty classrooms at the middle school and former Cedar Elementary School, now the Lifelong Learning Center, is used by the Early Childhood program, Early Childhood special education, Head Start, School Readiness, Early Childhood screen, adult basic education, said Saxton.
A number of the programs take place during the day, he said.
These portables classrooms are not the proper situation for the students, said parent Mary Ballou, who has a third-grader and kindergartner at SFE.
“I think shutting down the portables was appropriate,” said Mark Johnson, whose wife taught in one of the SFE portable classrooms.
Part of his frustration with the situation is it took so long, he said.
A teacher fell through the floor last year and every time it rained the teachers had to call maintenance for buckets, Johnson said.
It’s no revelation that there was mold in the buildings. His wife still suffers from mold symptoms, he said.
Johnson wants someone to be accountable for the future, he said.
In her son’s last six years of schooling, he has been in the portable classrooms for three, said Rose Moe.
Last year he used his asthma inhaler an unbelievable amount, she said.
Her East Bethel student has been moved from a sick portable classroom to a dusty and loud gym. How can she send her son to school without fearing he will have a severe allergy attack, Moe said.
Other parents wanted to know why the district could not build additional levels to the existing schools or add onto them without voter approval.
The building foundations were not designed to add more levels, said Saxton.
They had looked at adding onto the buildings, but it would have cost more than building a new school, said Boardmember Amy Kelly.
If the district adds more than 20 percent onto the buildings it would still need to have voter approval, she said.
Solutions?
Responding to parents who wanted to know why the water leaks hadn’t been fixed, Saxton said when districts lease a building, there are limited things it can do for maintenance.
Although the district would call Mod Space for repairs, it would take time.
It took three to four months to replace a broken window and then it wasn’t caulked, Saxton said.
The district did take on some of the repairs. When the district’s maintenance department is called, it wants to fix it right away, said Anderson.
But the leaks have been an ongoing problem, he said.
With the future of 500 kids at three different sites to decide, some board members are clearly losing patience with Mod Space.
The board was supposed to be discussing options Oct. 30, but how could it when “we don’t know what the company will do for us,” said Boardmember Sandy Grams.
It has a past history of not responding to the district, she said. “They don’t get back to you,” Grams said to district staff.
When the assessment team was expected to come out Nov. 1, Boardmember Renee Lipinski said she wanted an answer that day.
“If the district is having difficulty getting them on the phone, corner them while they are here,” she said.
She is discouraged by this. “It’s been a week and we still haven’t heard ...,” anything from Mod Space’s corporate office in Chicago, said Kelly.
Boardmember Harry Grams does not think the district should further its commitment with this company, he said.
The district has made it clear to Mod Space that it would not accept any portable classroom that has been used in other districts, said Larson.
The current portables are 12 years old, something the district was not aware of when they were installed, he said.
It has been made clear to Mod Space the district would only accept new off the line portable classrooms, Larson said.
When the district leased the portables it expected a safe and healthy product, said Larson.
Tammy Sakry is at
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More stories on this topic:
St. Francis: More mold found in portable classrooms
Cedar Creek staff moved students into the gym, labs and lounge. An air quality company is testing samples found in the portable classrooms, which house the school's overflow population.
By Norman Draper, Star Tribune
Last update: October 30, 2007 – 12:04 AM
More mold has been found in portable classrooms in the St. Francis School District.
This time, say school officials, the problem isn't as severe as the one more than a week ago in the portable classrooms at St. Francis Elementary School.
Still, water and mold were bad enough at Cedar Creek Community School in Cedar that students in eight classrooms -- 207 of the school's 1,088 students -- had to be moved Monday from the dank and musty portables to the science lab, staff lounge and gym in the school building.
"It disrupts gym, it disrupts science instruction, it's just a general pain," said Darin Hahn, Cedar Creek principal.
The portables house the schools' overflow student population.
Superintendent Edward Saxton said school officials were concerned about the portable classrooms, where windows leak when it rains and generate complaints that they reek of moisture.
"One person said it smelled like his mother's root cellar," Saxton said. Last Friday, district officials cut into the sheetrock walls in three of the portables and found the mold, now being tested by a local air quality testing company. There was enough evidence of mold to convince school officials that kids and teachers and some basic classroom furniture and supplies had to be moved. That, said Saxton and Hahn, happened Monday morning with the help of the school staff and the first-hour physical education class from St. Francis High School.
"They were ready for the students at 8:45 a.m.," when school began, Saxton said. "There are still things to do, but the teachers have a space, the kids have a space, and they're out of the portables, which was our major concern."
So far, there haven't been any parent complaints. But Hahn said there have been some complaints from students and teachers whose allergies have flared.
Hahn said the prognosis is for an "eight- to 15-day fixable problem," and that representatives of the company that leases the district the portables -- ModSpace of Wayne, Pa. -- were supposed to be at the school by today to figure out how to fix the problem. District officials expect ModSpace to come up with a solution for the 18 portables at St. Francis Elementary School that had to be vacated because of mold problems. At that school, 250 of the school's 775 students had to be moved, some to another district building. Saxton said he doesn't expect those portable classrooms ever to be habitable.
"Those won't house students in our district ever again," he said.
In a statement, ModSpace officials said the company "has repeatedly indicated its desire to resolve this situation as quickly as possible and with as little disruption as possible to the children of St. Francis."
Norman Draper • 612-673-4547
Norman Draper •
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More mold found in St. Francis classrooms
http://www.startribune.com/north/story/1516146.html
Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription), MN - Oct 29, 2007
By Norman Draper, Star Tribune This time, say school officials, the problem isn’t as severe as the one more than a week ago in the portable classrooms at ...
District tries to answer portable questions without Mod Space reply
http://abcnewspapers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=846&Itemid=1
Coon Rapids Herald, MN - 17 hours ago
After a mold problem was found in the portable classrooms at two elementary schools last week, Independent School District 15 parents wanted answers. ...
Separate Possible Classroom Mold In Same District
http://wcco.com/local/classroom.mold.cedar.2.426178.html
WCCO, MN - Oct 29, 2007 |
