District eyes more environmental testing

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No rash decision: District eyes more environmental testing at

Brookfield East

http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2005/May_05/05132005_03.asp

By GM Today Staff

May 14, 2005

BROOKFIELD - When in doubt, get a second opinion.

And that is what the Elmbrook School District is now looking to do

in determining what is causing skin rashes on two teachers and a

staff member at Brookfield Central High School.

On April 12, the high school was tested by the Wisconsin Department

of Commerce for mold and other related matters, focusing on two

science rooms. The testing determined that there were no mold

problems and that carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, temperature and

relative humidity levels were at acceptable levels. However, due to

questions in the methodology, the district is now looking to hire a

second company to retest the school, said Ross, district

director of facilities management.

" What I'm trying to do is set up a meeting with everybody involved

in the issue, to get everything out on the table so everyone knows

what the issues are and how to proceed, " he said. " I want to make

sure everybody is operating under the same playbook and we are

working on this together instead of as adversaries. "

The teachers union has offered to send in a dog trained to locate

mold and has sent a health survey to its members in the school.

" I think we first have to find out how widespread the problem is and

that's why we put a survey out - to see if it was linked to one

portion of the building, " said Ellen MacFarlane, executive director

of TriWauk UniServe Council. " It was a survey that was put together

using information from a Web site about school mold. "

The survey results were not known and Ross has chosen to not use the

specially trained dog yet.

" I went to the mold dog Web site and one of the things the mold dog

is for is for locating colonies of mold so you don't have to tear

the place apart. There is mold everywhere, " he said. " The test we

took did not indicate that there was a problem with mold colonies in

that place. I'm going to hang my hat on the scientific method to

start with and proceed as far as I can down that road. "

MacFarlane explained that mold is a problem in a lot of places.

" Mold is like the new asbestos and more schools are recognizing the

problems of air quality, " she said. " Brookfield Central is an older

building and it was built in stages and quite honestly it needs a

lot of renovation. "

While the timing of these concerns could aid the district's desire

to pass a referendum to build two new high schools, Superintendent

Matt Gibson prefers to see concrete evidence of a problem with the

school first.

" I think we have talked about air quality issues as being a reason

for a new Brookfield Central High School, " he said. " It has to be a

documented air quality issue, though, and what's come forward so far

has been alleged. It was not substantiated, so we'll see what comes

out of the second one. "

( Gilbert can be reached at kgilbert@...)

This story appeared in the Waukesha Freeman on May 13, 2005.