Mold stirs concerns at Stagebarn Elementary school

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http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2003/05/14/news/local/news03.txt

Mold stirs concerns at schoolBy Woster, Journal Staff Writer

PIEDMONT - Staff complaints about air quality at Stagebarn Elementary School have taken on new significance since officials discovered mold in a classroom ceiling.Meade County School District Superintendent Jim Heinert said Tuesday that the mold was revealed about 10 days ago after an 8-foot-long fluorescent light panel fell from a rain-soaked ceiling in a sixth-grade classroom at the school in Piedmont Valley. The fixture fell at night when nobody was in the room and has since been fixed, he said. Now, the school is trying to decide if the presence of mold is hurting air quality at the school."We identified a couple of areas of mold in ceiling tile that had been wet sometime earlier," Heinert said. "Visual inspections don't lead us to the conclusion that we have a widespread problem here. We're not aware of anybody who's sick because of the mold."The issue didn't just arise when the light fixture fell. Several weeks before the collapse, the school district hired an air-quality specialist from Rapid City to perform tests at Stagebarn."Some staff members felt there was a problem with the air quality in that building," Heinert said. "Visual inspections didn't indicate a problem, so we did the air-quality assessment, to put the idea to rest or identify the problem."The test results should be back in a week to 10 days. Meanwhile, the classroom where the light fell is back in use."The tests should give us a better idea of what the problem is and the extent," Heinert said.The Stagebarn School has about 250 students in grades 2 through 6."It's a steel building, and steel buildings are inclined to leak," Heinert said.That has been especially likely this spring, when a succession of soaking rains bathed the drought-plagued region. A leaky roof apparently soaked the classroom ceiling to the point where it couldn't hold the weight of the light fixture, Heinert said.Some parents of students at Stagebarn have been worried about the possible health effects of the mold, he said."I think we have a few parents with allergenic kids who are in a state of alarm, which is understandable," he said. "If we have a problem, we want to find it and fix it."Contact Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@...