Black mold found in Kimball Elementary School

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http://www.thetimesherald.com/news/stories/20030422/localnews/162690.html

Black mold found in Kimball Elementary SchoolDistrict closes classroom, assures parents building's air quality safe By HANNAH NEWTONTimes Herald

By MELISSA WAWZYSKO, Times Herald CLASSROOM CLOSED: A small amount of black mold was discovered earlier this month in a room used by the Young 4s program at Kimball Elementary School.

BLACK MOLD

HOW TO HANDLE IT

Determine how the mold entered the building and correct it (such as water leaks, condensation or flooding).

Clean mold off surfaces with a weak bleach solution.

Remove carpets if mold is found under them.

Replace insulation and wallboards if mold is growing inside them.

Discard moldy items.

KIMBALL TWP. -- The air in Kimball Elementary School is safe, but the building had black mold, according to a study requested by the Port Huron Area School District and released Monday. Small areas of potentially irritating black mold were found on a ceiling tile and wall in a classroom used for the Young 4s program. The ceiling tile and drywall since have been removed. The classroom has been closed since the beginning of spring break earlier this month. Prout, the district's director of building operations, said the room will stay closed until the end of the school year, then will be renovated and re-opened as an art room. About 50 parents met Monday with school officials to discuss the issue. Some parents discussed a plan to picket the school and keep their children home today despite assurances the pupils face no danger. The children, they said, have been coming home from school with unexplained rashes and coughs. Experts said black mold -- a greenish-black mold called Stachybotrys atra -- can cause irritation or illness in people sensitive to it, but research is limited. A spate of stories about black mold has prompted a national wave of lawsuits, insurance claims and home-repair scams -- but few cases of people actually made ill by the spores. Port Huron school officials said the Kimball pupils could have been suffering a variety of ailments unrelated to the mold. Two years ago, several schools in Romeo were closed for a time while black mold was removed. Prout said Kimball Elementary wasn't as clean as it should be, and that, in the past month, 400 hours worth of additional cleaning has been done. "The standards of the district were not being kept as far as the day-to-day cleaning of the classrooms," he said. After fears about the mold were raised in March, the district spent about $5,000 on air quality testing by Gene Tironi of NTH Consultants in Farmington Hill. Tironi also did the testing for Romeo schools. Prout said all the classrooms in the building are individually ventilated, so even if spores were found in the air in one classroom, they couldn't travel to the rest of the school. He said more air tests are possible. Thereasa Moran, 29, of Kimball Township, has a son, , 4, who attended class in the room where the black mold was found. She's worried it could have moved elsewhere in the school while it was being cleaned, and she wants more testing. She also accused the district of cleaning the room before the air quality test so the results would be favorable to the district. "This stinks of a cover-up," Moran said. District officials deny her claim. The ceiling tile with the black mold was not in the room the day of the air quality test, but the black mold on the wall was, meaning pupils likely weren't exposed to the black mold while they were in the classroom, Prout said.

Originally published Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Contact Hannah Newton at (810) 989-6277 or hnewton@....