Officials say school is safe - mont Elementary

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Officials say school is safe

by Ripley May 08, 2002

Several parents at mont await mold test

Kayla Parks hasn't been back to school since April 17 - the day she and her

fourth-grade classmate were rushed to s Hopkins Bayview

Medical Center with severe breathing difficulty.

Kayla's mother, , and 's mother, Sites, are concerned that

mold and construction debris at mont Elementary might be causing

illness in their children and the children of about 30 other parents. Some

parents, unsure of the building's safety, have kept their children home from

school. mont reported 80 students absent Wednesday of last week, 89

on Thursday and 64 on Friday.

Baltimore County Public Schools officials say otherwise. After visually

inspecting the school three times and conducting an air quality test over

the weekend, schools spokesman Herndon said, the county has declared

the building safe.

" Everybody that has inspected the building has given the building a clean

bill of health, " Herndon said Monday.

Parks and Sites said last week that their children developed severe coughs

in January. Kayla was first diagnosed with bronchitis, then pneumonia and

finally asthma. She tested positive for a mold allergy.

, already diagnosed with asthma, was sick for much of January, February

and March, his mother said. Both mothers became suspicious when their

children's symptoms returned only when they were sent back to school.

" Kayla was a very healthy child until she hit this fourth-grade classroom, "

Parks said.

The emergency room doctor who treated both and Kayla on April 17 sent a

letter to mont principal Marsha Ayres that same day, concerned that

the children were having breathing problems at school despite being

medicated for severe asthma.

" I spoke to the teacher who called the ambulance today, who says she has

sent many other students from mont this year for medical treatment of

similar problems, " Dr. Kerry Van Voorhis wrote in his letter to Ayres. " I

think we owe it to these children to evaluate the school environment, and

specifically the rooms were and Kayla spend time, closely for the

allergic triggers. "

Kayla's allergist, Dr. Wood, expressed similar concerns in a note

dated April 27, mentioning that he has " seen a similar pattern in several

other children " attending mont.

Parents used a construction update meeting scheduled by Ayres on April 20 to

encourage the school to take action. More than 30 parents protested twice on

May 1, demanding more extensive testing and documentation for both mold and

asbestos, which they feared was uncovered when construction began in the

school April 24 and more children started getting sick, Parks said.

Whitley said her daughter, a second-grader, began having nosebleeds

nearly every day around the time that construction began but hasn't had any

since being taken out of school May 1.

" We're so close to the end of the school year - we could have waited to

[begin construction], " Whitley said Friday.

" When construction began, it exacerbated the situation that was there at the

school already, " said Herndon, the school spokesman.

Ayres did not return phone calls by press time, but did send two letters to

parents, dated May 1 and 5.

" The construction dust inherent in this [preliminary construction work] is

not a hazardous material and is to be cleaned up each evening by the

contractor, " Ayres wrote in the first letter. " We also understand that

children with asthma and a significant allergic reaction to dust need to be

monitored carefully throughout the renovation process. "

Renovations to the school this summer - which will include the installation

of a sprinkler system and electrical work - will require asbestos abatement,

but so far, Herndon said, no hazardous materials have been disturbed.

Nonetheless, air quality testing done over the weekend was a direct result

of concern about asbestos being released into the school, Herndon said.

" We wanted to go one step further given the fact that parents are leery that

a visual inspection might not pick up asbestos, " he said.

But parents like Parks and Sites, whose children became sick long before

construction began, are more concerned about mold. They learned in a meeting

Monday morning with Herndon, Ayres and Southeast Area schools executive

director Anne Glazer that more conclusive mold testing has been planned.

" We have met with the parents and we have some pretty good indication that

there is not a problem [with mold], but we didn't have hard data and that's

what the parents are asking for, " Herndon said. An independent company has

been hired to conduct the mold testing and the process will take about three

weeks, he added.

©The Dundalk Eagle 2002