Kids being relocated from School 15 tomorrow

[Guest guest]

Kids being relocated from School 15 tomorrow

NJ Blog - New Jersey*

by N. Judd

Sunday September 16, 2007,

http://www.nj.com/hudsoncountynow/index.ssf/2007/09/kids_being_reloca

ted_from_scho.html

Just when being back to school was starting to grow on students at

Jersey City's School 15, it was closed Friday because construction

workers found mold under the gymnasium floorboards.

In a statement released Friday, Superintendent of Schools T.

Epps Jr. announced that students at the Whitney M. Young Jr. school

will be reassigned temporarily to other schools tomorrow.

The students' school days will still begin and end in the courtyard

at School 15, but students and staff won't go inside the building

until " knowledgeable professionals determine that no safety concern

exists, " the statement said.

Several parents and guardians were frustrated that the mold

condition was not found until after the first week of school,

especially since the repairs had been planned well in advance and

were slated for completion during the summer.

" (The floor) sat last year through the school year, over the whole

summer. How long has the mold been in the school? " asked Vermia

Newton, whose 5-year-old twins started kindergarten at the school

this year and attended pre-kindergarten there last year.

One woman with a grand-niece in the school says this is just the

latest problem at the school.

" That whole school has been flooding for the longest, " Jeannette

Booker began, before cutting herself off. " With all that money from

the construction company (Schools Construction Corp.), they never

got that roof repaired. "

Sylvia , who said her 8-year-old grandson went to School 15

until she recently transferred him to a charter school, was also

frustrated. " When I came in in September I heard the gym floor was

still the same, " she said. " I walked over there, I said, 'why is

this floor still like this?' "

added that there were other problems throughout the school,

ranging from unsanitary bathrooms to loose banisters on the

stairwells.

Board of Education spokesman Gerard Crisonino confirmed that water

damage to the gym floor should have been repaired during the summer,

but " construction delays " prevented that from happening. Crisonino

denied that conditions inside the school were unsafe beyond the

existence of mold under the gym floorboards, which he said were

pulled up for the first time Friday.

" It's an old school building, " Crisonino said, " but everything still

works. "

Crisonino added the entire school will be checked for mold before

students and staff are allowed back in.

COMMENTS (1)Post a commentPosted by baligirl on 09/16/07 at 8:02PM

It should also be noted that the city ran a summer camp out of this

school. Both the BOE and the city swore the gym was functioning.

When confronted they pretended to be surprised that the gym had not

been repaired. Then a promise was made that it would be repaired

during the summer but of course that didn't happen. The Jersey City

Recreation Department still allowed the summer camp to be held at 15

and refused to move the kids to other sites. There is now a serious

question about other areas of the school being contaminated,

including the pool which has a negative history of its own.