Update: Students Clean Up School's Mold Problem

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http://www.volunteertv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2360834 & nav=4QcHRPXg

It's a follow-up to a story you saw only here on Volunteer TV : kids

being used to clean up their high school's mold problem.

Joining us with an update on the situation is Volunteer TV's Lee

Merrit.

The broadcast of our story has apparently led to major changes.

School leaders aren't blaming any one: calling it a well-intentioned

project they just didn't consider the health risks of. Risks they

hope are now no longer an issue.

The class project is over: students are no longer working on

removing mold from more than 200 air conditioners inside Jefferson

County High School.

" They may have been exposing themselves, unintentionally, to

hazardous materials, working on this, we've stopped that, " says Doug

Moody, Jefferson Co. Director of Schools.

Eight seniors were doing the work, as part of an air conditioning

maintenance class.

" This was scraped from an area that was 2 square feet, " Teacher

Seal, said during our original story, " ...a percentage of it is mold,

some of it's rust, some of it's other particulate things. "

Seal teaches the class, it's an elective many of his students

choose to take because they're interested in going into the air

conditioning and heating business.

" It's about as safe as anything else you can do, " one of the students

told us when we first investigated, " ...perfectly comfortable with

it. "

" I knew what I was getting myself into, Mr. Seal told us what we'd be

doing, got insurance in case something happened, but I chose to do

it, " said another student.

Students were told to take home these documents and show them to

their parents: it's a course outline, saying safety precautions

taken while working on air conditioners, but there's no mention of

potentially coming in contact with mold.

" These mold spores can cause chronic health defects, brain damage,

lung damage, immune damage, " Dr. Lipsey is the only mold

toxicologist with a phd in the entire country to testify in mold

cases.

We tracked him down in ville, Florida after learning about the

class project at Jefferson County High School.

" If the students are wearing dust masks and coveralls, this gives

them no protection, " Dr. Lipsey explains.

Lipsey says mold-cleanup projects should look more like this:

workers wearing full-body respirators, with the area they're working

securely enclosed.

He's not the only one, having nothing to do with the Jefferson County

School District, worried about the student workers.

" I was a special education teacher for most of 26 years at San Diego

City Schools, and I don't do that any more because I was exposed to

mold in two of the schools I recently worked in, and it gave me

disabling conditions, " says Brinchman, former teacher in San

Diego.

As a result, Brinchman searches the internet every day for

school mold stories.

She even started her own website, hoping to educate others about the

growing problem, but when she went to our website, and watched high

school students in our area cleaning up mold, she didn't know what to

do.

" I just broke down in tears, put my head down and sobbed, " Brinchman

admits, " ...all I could think of was that these students would

potentially have their futures stolen from them... They might be

trapped at home like I am, unable to go into most buildings, and

having chronic illnesses, and it just broke my heart. "

So she got in touch with Jefferson County Sschool superintendent Doug

Moody, the final call he took on the issue, before ending the class

project.

" All the intentions were good, " says Moody " but it may be experts

would say we were dealing with a situation we did not have full

knowledge of. "

None of the eight students working on the air conditioners have

reported health problems.

Extra maintenance workers have been hired to take over the work, with

the hope of finishing it before Christmas.

But plenty of other work needs to be done, mainly on parts of the

school's roof, which are leaking and causing most of the school's

mold.

School superintendent Doug Moody believes unless Jefferson County

Commissioners give the district four million dollars, repair work

won't get done.

More on that and the health risks students are facing without that

work getting done, Wednesday on Volunteer TV News at 5:30.