Maurice Green, the Superintendent for Guilford County Schools, wants parents to know that she is “deeply concerned” about the issues surrounding mold in Oak Ridge Elementary School – but I’m a little suspicious here.
Perhaps I became jaded after reading too many stories about school administrators who adamantly deny the obvious mold in their schools while teachers and students developed permanent health problems. But the actions taken by the administrators in this case have raised a few concerns of my own.
The school, which is only four years old, has had mold issues since it was built. But now the problem has worsened to a point where students are becoming sick, teachers are quitting, and parents are pulling their kids from school.
One teacher says it’s not uncommon to have 10 or 15 students in his class complaining of symptoms like sinus infections, fatigue, burning sore red eyes, and loss of sleep. Multiple doctors have independently verified that mold is the cause behind these illnesses. The individual stories of these students are tragic, especially when you consider the long-term effects that mold illnesses might cause.
But don’t worry. The school board has spent over $600,000 “addressing the mold issue.” That’s a lot of money, but I’m not sure what that even involves. All I could find was an environmental quality test by an industrial hygienist in order to determine if there was mold in the building. I suppose the fact that multiple occupants tested positive for mycotoxin poisoning wasn’t enough evidence. The test happened to show that there were “minimal spores” in the building. How convenient.
But what really gets me is what else is in Green’s letter to parents. Rather than just clean the mold, the school is now putting together a survey to start to collect medical information. The survey “is being designed to help health officials understand the cause of the allergic and respiratory illnesses reported by students and staff at the school.”
That’s right, while teachers are forced to hold classes outdoors because the mold is making everyone too sick, the school is still trying to “understand the underlying cause of any symptoms.”
Wouldn’t all this money put towards inspecting and studying the causes of the illnesses be better spent on actually removing the mold? Wouldn’t that better “resolve concerns” of the parents and faculty?
My worry is this: are school administrators actually trying to remove the mold or are they just looking for evidence in order to deny that mold exists?
After seeing this scenario play out so many times before, I offer my prediction for the future Oak Ridge Elementary. Further inspections by the school will continue to say that there is no mold. More students and faculty will become sick. Finally, the teachers and parents will put together their own independent inspection. They will find mold, lots of it. The school will be sued. The school will, in turn, sue the building contractors for bungling up the construction of the school which allowed for the mold to grow in the first place. The whole issue will take years to resolve. No one will have won – especially not the poor students.
But I hope Guilford County school administrators prove me wrong. I hope they decide to put kids first and now allow my prediction to actually happen. The Future of Mold will update you with more information on this story as it develops.
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