Botched assignment District's handling of middle school contaminated by mold des

[Guest guest]

Botched assignment

District's handling of middle school contaminated by mold deserves a

failing grade

Houston Chronicle*

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5768843.html

After first disavowing a health threat to sickened teachers and

students at Key Middle School and then spending $3 million to treat

mold contamination, Houston Independent School District

Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra is considering demolishing the

northside facility.

In the nine months since the mysterious illnesses were first

reported, the district leadership has made one misjudgment after

another, first implying that dozens of teachers were feigning

sickness as a union organizing tactic, then delaying for weeks the

removal of staff and students to safety. The performance calls into

question whether top HISD officials merited those hefty bonuses this

year.

In response to appeals by teachers who had received emergency room

treatment, the superintendent told concerned parents in September

that until there was proof of a serious problem, students would

continue to be taught at Key. This was after the principal of the

school, Mable Caleb, had begun wearing a filtered mask at work to

deal with an allergic reaction that had caused her face to swell.

Only through the intervention of U.S. Rep. Sheila Lee did

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Environmental

Protection Agency agents visit the school and confirm the presence

of mold and ventilation problems. Key students were transferred to

Fleming Middle School.

Although HISD carried out extensive cleaning and renovations,

Houston Federation of Teachers President Gayle Fallon says the work

did not include replacing an inadequate air and heating system and

sealing gaps in windows that allowed moisture to infiltrate the

building. " Even when they identified what the problem was, " Fallon

said, " HISD didn't even try to fix it. They did everything but. "

Equally troubling is the fact that no systematic effort has been

made to screen the mostly middle- and low-income students to

determine whether their exposure to the unidentified contaminants

places their health at risk.

With the likelihood that Key students will have to be permanently

relocated next school year to another campus, parents are concerned

that they will be moved into nearby Kashmere High School, creating a

school spanning grades 6 or 7 through 12. Many parents fear the

mixing of younger students, particularly girls, on a campus with

much older boys will prove a recipe for trouble. It's a valid point

that administrators should not dismiss.

Having gotten so much wrong and wasted $3 million in their handling

of the Key Middle School situation, it's time district

administrators stopped dictating and started listening to the views

of parents and teachers.