Boston Herald 10/7 Schools confront mold fear: Teachers, parents express.....

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Schools confront mold fear: Teachers, parents express growing health concerns

by E. Crummy

Monday, October 7, 2002

Chronic mold in some rundown Boston school buildings is causing respiratory problems and other illnesses, and officials are not doing enough to get rid of it, teachers and parents charge.

McLaughlin, a teacher at J. Elementary School in Dorchester where his three children are students, said his daughter suffers from eye irritations and allergies he believes are linked to mold at school.``She is sleepy, lethargic, has a dry eye condition and gets headaches,'' he said, noting that these symptoms don't occur in the summer or when his daughter is not in school. ``You can see the mold in the ceiling tiles from water leaking. Sometimes they paint over them.''But school officials insist the mold problem is not spreading out of control and does not pose a serious concern.Rob Roy, director of facilities at Boston Public Schools said the schools ``haven't had a lot of problems'' with mold, and when a three-member industrial environmental team spots it during visual inspections, they remove it quickly.Thriving in damp, dark places and often lurking behind walls and ceilings, below floors and between bricks, some molds can produce airborne mycotoxins, which many doctors believe can cause health problems, such as eye irritation, coughing, respiratory problems, and memory impairment and exacerbate such conditions as asthma, hay fever or other allergies.``We know these molds produce poison, and it gets into humans and makes them sick,'' said Straus, a mold expert with the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.School department records show that a number of schools in only the last academic year had mold problems.For instance, the Gould Shaw Middle School in West Roxbury had mold in the gym, which was ``washed, disinfected, (and) painted.'' It also had water-stained ceilings throughout the school.Mold was found in the library and girls' bathroom in the Quincy Dickerman Elementary School in Roxbury last October. In the school, there were eight rooms with mold, and the School Department said that the Oliver H. Elementary School in South Boston had mold problems in the past.Records also reveal scores of water-stained tiles - a virtual breeding ground for mold.Roxbury's Madison Park High School and Dorchester's Grover Cleveland Middle School, for instance, each had more than 30 rooms with stained ceilings, and the Blackstone Elementary School in the South End had ``severely water-damaged concrete walls and plaster ceilings.'' Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, called mold in the school buildings ``a tremendous problem.``I wouldn't find any of our schools exempt from mold,'' he said. ``The schools are terribly run down and decrepit . . . and people are suffering health problems. The Boston public school department doesn't take it as seriously as it should.''While McLaughlin has not been affected, he said at least 60 teachers at the school say they suffer from various ailments relating to mold or air quality issues from headaches to nausea.One of them - Ginny Lane, a teacher from the school - became ill four years ago. Her classroom was dark and had a consistent leak in the closet.After suffering from sinus infections, ear infections, respiratory problems and hair loss, Lane took a swatch of material from the classroom closet and had the teachers union send it to a lab. It tested positive for aspergillus, a mold that can be toxic.``The schools just don't want to believe that teachers and students are getting seriously ill from mold,'' said Lane, who went on sick leave in February. ``They need to do something before some children get really sick.''But the school department team simply does not have the manpower to thoroughly inspect each of the 125 schools in the Hub, officials acknowledge.Instead, they respond to complaints and try to check the mechanically ventilated schools - which lack fresh air - twice a year, but admit to only getting around to it once a year.In the past year, only 55 of the 125 schools have been visited either as part of a routine or due to a complaint, according to school department records.During visits, the schools are usually tested for air quality and temperature and visually inspected. ``We check for things like water-stained ceilings and usually replace them before mold grows,'' Roy said.Outside experts say the department's practice of removing mold-infested ceiling tiles is good, but attempting to scrub affected areas clean with chlorine, disinfectant and scraping is not effective.``If you use bleach and chlorine and paint over it, it grows right back,'' said Straus. ``The only way to get rid of that (mold) is to cut it out of where it is.''The Boston Public Health Department has implemented a Tools for Schools program in five schools to combat school environmental problems. The program trains parents, students and teachers to be aware of mold and other possible environmental toxins. ``We're trying to head off problems before they start,'' said Shea, director of Community Environmental Health.Shea said the Tools for Schools program is voluntary and not mandated by the School Department. ``We haven't been able to do it everywhere because it requires a serious commitment,'' he said.

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