School officials tackle Bethel air problems

[Guest guest]

http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/04_03/04_02_03/fr_school_officials.html

School officials tackle Bethel air problemsBy Becky

Marty Mason of the Bethel community has been hounding the Haywood County school board for six months about her 6-year-old son’s persistent cough, one she believes is attributed to the air in his classroom. Mason is not alone.Other students and teachers in the kindergarten and first-grade classroom building have complained of similar respiratory symptoms for nearly a year now. After a petition of more than 300 signatures was presented to the Haywood County Board of Education two weeks ago, the school system was persuaded to call in another expert — the third in one year — to test the air quality in the building.Indoor air quality specialist Art , who lives in Creek but travels all over the world as a consultant, will take air samples from the school this month, Assistant Superintendent McCracken said. McCracken will ask the school board to approve the air testing. has worked with several schools in North Carolina to solve indoor air quality problems.Complaints at Bethel started last spring, about the time when a colony of bats was discovered nesting in the roof of the elementary school, according to McCracken. Bats are a protected species and cannot be exterminated, McCracken said. So maintenance workers sealed up the openings the bats were using to enter the roof, timing it so most bats had likely left for the night. They went back a few weeks later, removed the ceiling tiles, swept and vacuumed out the bat droppings and a few dried bats, and put the same ceiling tiles back up, McCracken said.“There’s only been the skeleton of one bat since then,” McCracken said. McCracken said an expert was not called in to aid with the bat removal, but that the maintenance workers did everything they could short of replace the ceiling tiles.“I think a lot of it might have to do with the bats,” Mason said of her son’s bronchitis-like symptoms. “There are a lot of bat-related illnesses. I think it’s neglect on their part. I think they should have been a lot more thorough in investigating the problems and they should have been more open with the parents as to what is really going on. They just kind of put us off.”McCracken said he believes there is a problem with the air, but has had a hard time identifying it. The building is 15 years old and houses eight classes. The school maintenance staff replaced air filters and vacuumed out the ducs. The school will cut down some large pine trees this summer that shade the building, McCracken said.Last spring, the school system called in an outside air quality expert to test for mold. The tests came back clean, McCracken said. In December, the school brought in an air quality specialist with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Kushnia. He told the school to remove bookshelves from in front of the air return and to increase the humidity in the building. But the potential problems a humidifier could cause outweighed the benefits, McCracken said. The school system tried to reassure parents and teachers that an air quality expert found no significant health concerns, but parents continued to complain.“Of course parents are going to be skeptical when they said ‘We had one of our guys come in and look at it,’” Mason said of the expert with the Department of Public Instruction.“We are definitely are going to have to resolve the problem,” said Jimmy , school board representative from Clyde. “With the testing we have done so far, have we explored all the possibilities and was it sufficient enough? The children and teachers are our main concern right now. This is a problem that’s got to be fixed immediately. It’s not going to go away.”Common problemThe problems at Bethel Elementary School are not uncommon. Buncombe and counties have sent their school maintenance workers to air quality workshops to train them how to detect and deal with the growing problem.Buncombe County has had four indoor air quality scares this school year, and each time they called in an expert to test the air, according to Cecil Arthur, Buncombe County schools maintenance director.“The tests are expensive, but we want to make the schools safe for our students and staff.” Arthur said. “It’s getting larger and larger. Every school system in the past two years has had to deal with it in some form or fashion, and they don’t really know how to deal with it. That’s why our school system has gotten behind this, sent me to training and gotten to where we know what we need to know.”Arthur said he learned the hard way, however. T.C. on High School flooded in spring 2001 when water flowing into a clogged drain pipe backed up into the school. Maintenance workers dried out the rooms, but by the time students returned to school the following August, the smell of mold was apparent. It had started to grow behind the cabinets and under the carpets and was not visible at first. The school system spent $1 million setting up temporary classrooms for the students and gutting the building.“Sometime you learn it through the hard knocks, and we’re going to try to prevent the hard knocks from here on out,” Arthur said. “I had to get real educated quickly.”Now, Arthur has set-up an emergency response team that can be activated as soon as a potential problem is detected. In January, a pipe burst in one school, and the team had the room completely dried out by the next morning.The County school system also has emergency plans in place.“We’ve got supplies of ceiling tiles in every building so if they see something where a ceiling tile got wet, they can replace it right away,” said Superintendent Mack McCary. “We monitor that very carefully with all our custodians in schools.” County Schools also learned through experience about air problems. Cullowhee Valley Elementary is in a low, swampy area.“One summer to save money, they didn’t run the air conditioning, and when the students came back they found mold and mildew everywhere,” McCary said.Last year, teachers at Cullowhee Valley Elementary expressed concerns about moisture and respiratory symptoms again. The school system immediately brought in experts to test the air.“If it does get in your heating and air conditioning system, it has the potential for getting all over the building,” McCary said.That situation occurred at Hall Fletcher Elementary in Asheville in 2001.“We were having so many people out with respiratory problems,” said Fran , guidance counselor at the school. “I could be out on weekends and within in an hour of coming back Monday morning I would be sneezing.”After a year of these symptoms, the school system called in an expert and determined a leak in the ceiling of the library had caused mold and mildew in the carpeting and was being circulated in the duct work.“They worked with us and took care of it and there’s no problem anymore,” said.In Macon County, complaints of respiratory problems turned up at two brand-new elementary schools. “I had two teachers who felt like they had sick building syndrome. So I wanted to be able to prove that wasn’t the case,” said Rodney Shotwell, Macon County superintendent. The tests were worth it for peace of mind, Shotwell said.“If there’s a concern out there, for me to say ‘Oh don’t worry about it,’ I can’t say that to a parent. You’ve got to check things out,” said Bill Jamison, principal at the new South Macon Elementary where students and teachers complained of problems.