Mold issues persist at Western Salisbury Elementary School

Western Salisbury Elementary School faculty members filled the gallery at the Sept. 10 operations committee meeting to express their dismay over the persisting mold issues at the school.

WSE teacher and union Secretary Kathy DeBona addressed the board regarding an error in the board documents that reflected the meeting was to be held at the Harry S Truman Elementary School rather than the administration building.

“This has been a very trying time for the staff and the students and as you can imagine when we all gathered at HST the anxiety we felt when we learned we were at the wrong location,” DeBona said.

After the board explained the agenda template had been copied from the previous year and apologizing for the error, WSE teachers passionately expressed their concerns about the air quality at the school.

When the doors opened Aug. 28, rather than 200 excited students filling the halls, remediation teams, maintenance workers, HVAC and engineering firms were trying to find the root cause of the varying degrees of mold in the building.

Mold was discovered during the week of Aug. 20 while teachers were preparing the school for the new year.

Salisbury Director of Facilities, Safety and Security William Brackett said the school’s maintenance team was working in the school over the summer preparing for the upcoming school year; however, the teachers returning to the school were the ones to report the mold issue.

WSE teachers also expressed concern over conditions at the two schools housing their students.

DeBona offered to show members of the board a bucket collecting water in teacher Gary Schweyer’s classroom at Salisbury Middle School. Brackett said the maintenance team has been tracking a leak in the room for some time. The room is on the lower level and therefore the leak is not from the roof.

According to Brackett, the univent intake is more than likely the culprit of the leak and it will be repaired soon.

At HST, teachers were advised not to allow their students to leave their backpacks on the floor in classroom C-106 because the carpet was wet.

Brackett responded that the school is aware of the ongoing issue and that groundwater comes through the building during rainy periods. Because the school was built on “swampy soil” the issue is hard to remedy.

Members of the board suggested replacing the carpet with tile, at the very least, the water can be seen and removed with a wet vac.

Concerning the WSE building, despite all the remedies to eradicate the mold, Superintendent Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss said some rooms are still “testing hot.”

A closer examination of those rooms indicated the problem was multiplying from mold above the ceiling.

“We feel that after today, we are making some progress on those rooms,” Ziegenfuss said.

H.T. Lyons and Lehigh Valley Engineering were brought in to assess the issue and help the school determine the root cause in the school’s HVAC system.

Staff members said they began preparing their classrooms Aug. 21, while the mold testing had begun Aug. 20 without members of the staff being notified. According to Guidance Counselor Shannon Stokes, after staff was notified, they were given 15 minutes to “go in and get what they could.”

Stokes said the teachers spent a great deal of time and money to ready their classrooms to welcome the students and a lot of what they had purchased had to be thrown away.

Stokes said toxic black mold was found in classrooms 101 and 103.

Fourth grade teacher Patti Anderson was concerned the staff had been working in those conditions for days while the air quality was unhealthy.

“For those teachers who were in WSE over the summer who feel that they may have already suffered health complications from this, is there a plan or procedure to reimburse them for medical expenses?”

Ziegenfuss responded the appropriate step for the teachers would be to fill out a worker’s compensation claim form.

The root of the problem at WSE began with a summer full of rainy days and extreme humidity. Moisture worked its way into the HVAC system at the school and subsequently into the ceilings, onto the walls and surfaces and mold spores grew and spread throughout the building.

The classrooms with the highest levels of fungi as reported by EMSL Analytical are Rooms 101, 103, 105, 106 and 211, though spores were still present in other classrooms.

Brackett said the HVAC system at the school and the unit ventilators did not function adequately to cool the school without bringing humidity from the outside through coils over the unit and then inside the classroom.

To address the problem the unit ventilators have been dismantled and cleaned, surfaces have been HEPA-vacuumed and sanitized, areas above the ceiling have been “fogged” to kill the spores, carpeting has been or will be removed and the rooms will be air scrubbed. Tile is to be installed in place of carpeting.

Ziegenfuss noted that as the mold issue resolves, the school must determine how to prevent the issue from reappearing during the school year and the following summer.

The expense for the mold remediation is not covered by insurance.

The school will remain closed to students and faculty until the air is deemed healthy for re-entry. In the interim, kindergarten through second grade students from WSE are being taught by their teachers at HST while students in grades three through five are being taught at SMS.

Ziegenfuss said air quality testing will continue for the next several weeks.

“Our number one priority is the safety of the students and staff and if things have to be delayed to ensure that everything is ok, that is the route we will have to go. I would like to thank Bill’s staff, the administration, support staff, teachers and everybody who kicked in and really stepped up and contributed to helping to solve this problem,” Director George Gatanis said

“Grace and the other principals put a lot of time into planning and working with the staff and getting their input,” Ziegenfuss said. “The transition has been largely successful.”

WSE faculty who attended the meeting and members of the school board acknowledged the tireless efforts made by WSE Principal Grace Hartman for the students as well as the staff.

As the progress continues at the school, the current plan is to open the school to students and faculty Sept. 24.

Until the situation is remedied, open house for WSE parents of students in grades three to five will be held Sept. 18 at SMS. If the situation is remedied by Sept. 25, the open house for WSE parents of students in grades kindergarten through second will be held at the school.