Mold has returned to ton school classrooms

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Tuesday, April 30, 2002

7:22 a.m. CT

Mold has returned to ton school classrooms

By JESSICA RAYNOR

jraynor@...

PERRYTON - It's back.

A type of black mold found its way into ton High School classrooms

again, causing the district to close off classrooms and bring in air

filtration equipment, said Robin Adkins, ton Independent School

District superintendent.

This comes about a month after a few classrooms in the Mize Vocational

Center were shut down and supposedly cleansed of all stachybotrys chartarum,

a toxic mold than could produce allergic symptoms in people.

" It's very much a disruption, " Adkins said. " We don't know what level (of

mold) is safe. You maybe go to the risk of overreacting, that disrupts your

classrooms, but we have to do this. "

A districtwide indoor air quality test last week uncovered " a couple of

suspicious spots " in classrooms thought to be clear of the mold last month

after extensive filtration. Preliminary testing shows the spots to be the

same black mold that plagued the rooms last month, Adkins said.

Students were moved from the classrooms, and Adkins sent letters home with

all the parents informing them about the mold problem. He said by late today

he expects final results and engineer recommendations on what to do next.

Shortly after last month's all-clear in the journalism classrooms, engineers

tested " something suspicious " on the walls of some classrooms down the hall

and around the corner, Adkins said. It appeared to be the same black mold.

Mold growth appeared in the space between the interior and exterior walls.

Workers took off some stripping on the wall that showed visible growth,

which opened up the space from which the problem was coming, he said.

At a cost of $14,000, Vanco Insulation, Inc. is removing the mold through a

process similar to what Absestos Removal, Inc. did last month, Adkins said.

A high-tech filtration system sucks the air out of the room and cleanses it.

He said he did not know when students and teachers can move back to their

classrooms.

While nothing has been proven, the black mold's presence could be connected

to a variety of health concerns, including nosebleeds, dizziness, mental

confusion and hair loss, depending on how much mold is present,

Straus, a microbiologist at Texas Tech Health Science Center in Lubbock,

said in previous reports.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reports that the

mold may cause allergy and asthma-type symptoms such as itchy eyes, wheezing

and stuffiness.