Chesterton Middle School students' symptoms prompt state investigation

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CMS students' symptoms prompt state investigation

By KEVIN NEVERS and VICKI URBANIK

The Indiana Department of Health is planning to conduct an investigation " in

the near future " of possible indoor air-quality concerns at Chesterton

Middle School, after the parents of several students reported symptoms in

their children ranging from headaches and nausea to fevers and rashes.

IDOH spokesperson Dunlap told the Chesterton Tribune today that a

sampling team will be sent to CMS soon, although a date has not yet been

scheduled. She could not say, however, what substances that team would

sample for. " We're certainly not excluding anything at this point, " Dunlap

said.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management, on the other hand, has

excluded one substance, asbestos, after a team dispatched to CMS Feb. 14

conducted its own sampling. IDEM spokesperson Keri McGrath said that those

samples all tested negative for asbestos and added that CMS had previously

tested negative for asbestos following its renovation in 2000. IDEM then

referred the case to IDOH, which has responsibility for indoor air-quality

concerns not directly related to known environmental causes.

Meanwhile, CMS Principal Ton said, the Porter County Health Department

has found no trace of one other substance: mold.

But Ton is eager for IDOH to visit the school. " I'm in favor of having the

testing done as soon as it can be done, " he said.

The parent of one of the CMS students whose symptoms prompted the

investigation, Becky Christy, told the Tribune that her son began coming

home early in the fall semester with headaches. About a month after those

symptoms first presented, she said, her son started to complain of nausea

and low-grade fevers as well. The symptoms became acute shortly before the

Christmas break, Christy said, and her son's recovery time-which initially

lasted only a couple of hours-eventually lengthened to several days. Now her

son is on a reduced schedule, she said, and while he no longer complains of

headaches, he remains congested, tired, and irritable.

After consulting with her son's physician, Christy believes now that her son

may be reacting to formaldehyde in the school's new carpeting or in other of

its recently renovated surfaces. For his part Ton said that a formaldehyde

reaction is a possibility but that the presence of formaldehyde would not be

unique to CMS. " Any time you have reconstruction you have to put in new

things. "

The parent of another CMS student who has presented similar symptoms, Laurie

Kittle, told the Tribune that at the moment she's hesitant to attribute

those symptoms to an environmental problem in the building. " We haven't

pinpointed the problem, " Kittle said, " and we don't want to point fingers. .

.. . I think the school is doing the best they can with the information they

have. At this point it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. "

Ton did say that attendance figures and nurse referrals at CMS fail to

suggest a systemic environmental problem in the building. Attendance has

been running between 95 and 97 percent this school year, he observed, while

his staff has shown no patterns of sickness either. Nor have his nurses

reported any consistent symptoms in the students referred to them beyond

those associated with cold and flu season.

" We've checked every report, " Ton said. " We've checked every concern. I'm

not disputing that their children are sick. But I don't believe it's caused

by something unique to the building. "

For his part Duneland Superintendent H. Hewlett said that the school

system is doing everything it can to ally the parents' concerns.

Repeated testing has reveal nothing to indicate " a building problem, " he

said, and asbestos, air quality, and mold tests have all come up negative.

But the school system does plan another round of more detailed testing in

such heavily used areas as the gym and the media center. Hewlett noted that

the gym has a new venting system and that it is now air conditioned for the

first time.

Hewlett emphasized that the school system is not suggesting there is no

problem whatsoever, but that none of the testing so far points to any

specific area in the building that would trigger the symptoms presented by

the students. The small number of students having problems at CMS appears to

be comparable to the numbers at other school buildings.

While Duneland is not ruling out a problem, Hewlett said, " We don't believe

there is an issue. "

Before the new CMS opened, the school system conducted a variety of tests,

including asbestos monitoring and off-gassing from new carpeting. Hewlett

noted that CMS has more hard surfaces than in most other schools, which

should reduce problems with new carpeting.

Hewlett did say that it's not unusual for students with asthma and allergies

to have problems at school and that Duneland has an established protocol

when dealing with such cases. It has, for example, worked with the families

and their physicians in altering the times of medications and in moving the

students to other classrooms.

Posted 2/28/2002