VIDEOS: CDC inspections set at Key as students go off-campus

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Sept. 26, 2007, 8:26PM

CDC inspections set at Key as students go off-campus

Feds to conduct tests to find out if school is safe after teachers, students

report illnesseS

By ERICKA MELLON

WATCH VIDEOS

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5165025.html

Federal inspectors will meet with Houston school officials today to begin

unlocking the mystery of what might have caused numerous teachers and students

to report falling ill at Key Middle School.

For the staff and students at Key, today marks the start of classes at a new

location, Fleming Middle School, where they will stay for an undetermined amount

of time while officials review potential health hazards at their campus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plan to send two mold specialists

— a doctor and an industrial hygienist — to Key. The inspectors will detail

their specific plan when they arrive, but they likely will interview employees,

review medical records and collect air samples if necessary, said

Bowles, communications specialist for the agency's National Institute for

Occupational Safety and Health.

" We go in, and we want to hear every side of the story, " she said. " We want to

look at all the information there and look at it impartially. We just want to do

good science here. That's our goal. "

Meanwhile, Cabrero kissed her daughter goodbye outside Fleming Middle

School this morning and then hoped for the best as her seventh-grade daughter

and all the other students at Fleming were joined by about 700 students and

staff from Key Middle School.

" She didn't want to come to school today, " Cabrero said of her daughter .

" I just told her if anybody approached her in the wrong way to take it to an

officer or a teacher. "

The Houston Independent School District has placed extra police officers at

Fleming and Chief Wiley supervised the drop-off students this morning.

" I think if there's an incident, it will be isolated — some kids bumping into

each other, " Wiley said.

Evaluations of schools rare

The agency conducts similar evaluations at 60 to 100 workplaces a year, though

it rarely visits schools, inspecting about 15 since 2001, Bowles said.

The CDC got involved after U.S. Rep. Sheila Lee, D-Houston, invited

federal inspectors to tour Key this month.

Lee said she was frustrated by the Houston Independent School District's

slow response to teachers, who had been complaining since August that something

inside the 50-year-old building — which lacked air-conditioning during part of

the summer — was making them sick.

Several employees have reported difficulty breathing, watery eyes and skin

rashes, and parents also have said their children were getting sick at Key.

District officials repeatedly have countered that Key is safe, citing

air-quality tests conducted by a private contractor and city inspectors. But the

district formally requested help from the CDC this week.

Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said she's glad

Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra seems to be taking the health concerns at Key

more seriously.

" It took Sheila, it took us, it took the media — there's only so much

embarrassment, " she said.

Sharing the campus

Saavedra has not conceded that Key is unsafe but decided last week that students

and staff should be relocated so the district could conduct a more extensive

study of the campus.

The Key students got a break from school Monday and Tuesday while teachers

prepared for the move to nearby Fleming. The students from the two schools will

attend separate classes and lunch periods.

Corina Ortiz of the Houston Federation of Teachers said she also is worried that

the classrooms at Fleming are going to be packed.

The Key teachers will, in fact, have to make do with fewer classrooms than

usual, district spokesman Terry Abbott said, but many of the rooms at Fleming

are much larger. There might be 40 or more students in one class, he said, but

the student-teacher ratio should remain the same.

Some students and parents have said the teens from Fleming and Keys don't get

along. The district set up separate entrances. The Fleming children entered

through the main doors on Collingsworth. The Key students entered through the

side on Wipprecht.

Most of the Key students took school buses from Key to Fleming. They filed off

in mostly straight lines, many of them smiling. A -seventh-grade history teacher

greeted them with words of encouragement. " Welcome to Fleming... straight

As.... smile, smile, " he said.

ericka.mellon@...

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