Tag Archives: asbestos

Sinking Ship

Just a quick school update. Because I know you’re all on the edge of your seats.

Special board meeting tonight where the Board President resigned (everyone is acting like this is a surprise – he’s still a board member). Also at the board meeting it was announced that the Elementary and Intermediate Schools will not be combined*. They’ll hire a new principal for the Elementary School, renovate the building a little bit (new fence, new toilets) and call it fine.

Figures.

If we weren’t out already, I’d grab Ellie and head for the hills.

*You’d think they could have sorted that out BEFORE they talked to two schools full of teachers about becoming a K-6. Board members were at those meetings!

Where We Are Now

Last Thursday was another Board of Education meeting with the “work session” scheduled to happen immediately before the voting session (it’s usually the week before).

Hang on, let me back up a second.

About a week before that meeting, the superintendent informed the faculty and staff of both the Intermediate School (which is next door to our Elementary School) and the Elementary School that the two schools would be combined as K-6 next year. The plan was to close the Elementary School and put a 36 classroom wing on the Intermediate school. The Intermediate School’s principal was offered the job as the principal of the new K-6. Building the wing will take a year, so at the work session Thursday, the board was supposed to discuss whether to leave kids in the “clean” rooms at our Elementary School* or put everyone in portables while the wing was being built. Board members were supposed to tour the Elementary School over the week to get a look at the building (since few of them had ever been there). None of our board members are building inspectors, contractors, or know anything about building care and maintenance. These were visual inspections.

The Board has said repeatedly that our Elementary School is the worst building in the county. They told everyone that during the property tax referendum. Just weeks ago, everyone agreed that a new facility was a top priority. But because the referendum was resoundingly defeated – two of the renewals as well – the school system has no money. Less money than before without the tax renewals. So a whole new building is out of the question. A wing will only cost around 5 million and they have 10 million in the bank for capital improvements. The Common Sense Campaign (Tea Party) that campaigned strongly against the referendum is in full support of the wing saying “it’s the right thing to do.” A wing is what the city wants. A wing is the logical choice, the affordable choice, and the choice that will restore some faith in a school board with a serious PR problem (a big cause of the aforementioned “resounding defeat”). Which will make what happened next boggle your mind.

Instead of talking about building v. portables, the Board opted to discuss whether to close the school at all. The feeling was that the building “had been neglected” but that it was all cosmetic and a couple hundred thousand dollars would fix it right up. One of the board members didn’t even go inside our school – he just drove by.

We left in disgust before the work session was over.

The superintendent resigned the next day.

*I’ve seen the mold report – which ones are the “clean” rooms again?

School Drama – Where Were We?

It was Teacher Appreciation Week at school and there was a lot of cuteness.

bagofchips

Cute stuff every day. Ramping up to personalized drink cozies.

Today we finished the week with a Coffee Shop (us with a bunch of Krups machines) and donuts. It was really spectacular and I can’t take credit for any of it – my Vice President (and next year’s President) handled the plans for this week while I was stressing about the book fair. Now it’s just Field Day and I can close out my PTO year. YAY.

In other school news, after an email where I copied the superintendent, I finally managed a phone conversation with the Facilities and Maintenance Coordinator. I hung up the phone with more questions and worries than when I said, “Hello.” He did, however, commit to getting me all the fire inspection reports and five years worth of work orders for Bay Minette Elementary. This was…Wednesday maybe? I’ll let you know if I ever see them.

The unfortunate phone call resulted in another letter to the superintendent (I also copied the two people he referred me to originally – one has been responsive one has not) re-asking all my main questions since I didn’t receive any actual answers to them. This resulted in a meeting with the Director of Safety – his real title is actually longer than that – who I had talked to a couple times on the phone about how neither one of us had time for a meeting and met at the school when he was up there one day. He is really nice. And ex-military. So he has a comforting “How Do We Get This Fixed” attitude. He took my complaints and suggestions seriously, and while he has a great poker face, I think he was surprised by some of the things I mentioned. I honestly think they had no idea what was going on in that school. Which honestly gives me the wiggins. I still left that meeting feeling more positive than I had in weeks.

I’m pretty sure the vast majority of the Board of Education has absolutely no idea why I (we really) am still upset and hassling them since everything is getting fixed now, but I think the Director of Safety may get it. It’s awesome that’s everything is getting fixed now. It’s awesome that you didn’t give my kid cancer. It’s not awesome that it got this way. It’s not awesome that it was this way while my child was in school for more than a year and a half. I need the Board of Education to figure out how it got this way, own the severity of the problem and work for lasting change.

About the Mold

It was Book Fair Week at school. I’m worn out. But it does mean that the end of the school year is near – just two more events and then summer!

bookfair

I’m ashamed to tell you how many books we came home with. We were already low on shelf space…

The mold results (air quality tests – they didn’t grow anything just counted spores) arrived on Monday. Eleven rooms in the facility were tested randomly – it should be noted that none of the tested classrooms are the ones that flood regularly. Let me preface the rest of the discussion with: none of the majorly toxic types showed up in the samples. That way you can skip the next bit if if bores you. Google and I spent a couple hours together (that’s all I had time for during Book Fair Week) learning about mold types. I’m still not an expert, but I learned enough to make me feel like something is hinky. That and the way the company that analyzed the mold results hedged their bets with comments like, “Although a reasonable attempt has been made to locate suspect microbes (mold) in the areas identified, the inspection techniques used are inherently limited in the sense that only full demolition procedures will reveal all building materials of a structure and, therefore, all areas of potential microbial growth.”

The problem with mold testing is that there’s no set standard for “acceptable” amounts. So the testing companies set their own. This particular company decided that as long as there are more mold spores outside than inside, everything is fine. Regardless of type. Now, according to the letter from our Superintendent, “The environmental testing company reports that the numbers of detected mold spores was LESS inside than outside, as should be the case.” And that is accurate based on the total spores counted in the report. What isn’t taken into consideration is that there are two types of mold spores that are much higher in the outdoor sample: Basidiospores (released during periods of high humidity or rain and often found in forests and woodlands – radically higher concentration since it’d rained every day for more than a week) and Ascospores (grows well under a variety of conditions and found everywhere outside). There are several types (4-6 in eight of the rooms tested) found indoors in percentages greater than outside. Two of them – Cladiosporium (grows inside where the relative humidity is 50% or higher) and Pennicillium (often found growing in water damaged indoor areas) – have percentages that are higher in every room tested. Penicillium concentrations are triple or more in every room: 3% concentration outdoors compared to 8%-47% indoors. Since only one of those classrooms is near the ones that flood when it rains, I’ve got to wonder where all the other water damage is coming from. Super leaky ill-repaired roof perhaps? They finished putting new shingles on the roof (although they called it “getting a new roof”) when Ellie started kindergarten. Before that, the leak solution was to put big trashcans in the attic to catch the drips. I did not know that when Ellie started school there. Malaria anyone? Also, filled with water those would be really really heavy. I wonder if they ever came through the antique ceilings. Let me say just one more time (in the fine tradition of whoever wrote the opinion letter about the mold test), there’s a real good chance I just can’t read a mold report and I’ve got this all wrong.

However. They “relocated” three classrooms (Ellie’s, the one near the flooding and the one next door to that one) even though everything is FINE. Ellie’s teacher requested a new sink and countertop over a year ago. Mold grows (well, grew, since they took the sink out) up out of the sink in her classroom, she kills it with Clorox and it grows again. The facilities people came, measured the counter and were never heard from again. They recommendations from the mold people were that the countertop, back splash and cabinets underneath be replaced. They’ve only replaced the countertop – not the water damaged cabinets underneath. Which means that they have yet to treat the mold that’s growing back of the cabinets. I’ve got pictures. They are supposedly remediating (that means spraying some stuff while wearing haz-mat suits) in the other two classrooms and testing the classrooms that do actually flood when it rains.

My requests for meetings and documents* have been deferred, ignored and shuffled from person to person for the past two weeks. I let the superintendent know that the people he referred me to will not meet with me or answer my questions. This time, he referred me to the guy I’m pretty sure is responsible for the neglect of the building. We’ll just see how that goes. Everybody (including my new contact) that I’ve sent emails or that I have had short “I haven’t got time to meet with you” conversations with has until Monday afternoon to get back to me. Then I’m going to start calling them each and every day until I get my answers. I’m out of patience and I’m out of trust. Somebody is responsible for the neglect of the building. Somebody chose to neglect EPA requirements. Somebody chose to ignore basic fire safety. Somebody put my kid (and a whole bunch of others) in unsafe and unsavory conditions. I want to know who.

*anything that has anything to do with the fire safety system before it’s stunningly quick replacement in February (date of installation and service record particularly), the past 10 years of work orders for the school (date submitted and date addressed particularly) and the “regular asbestos and mold tests” that the PR guy is absolutely convinced they perform.

Fire Code

As of Thursday afternoon sometime, our school was taken off fire watch. One more step towards accomplishing the primary goal of “Immediate Safety.” Secondary goals include: undeniably prove the pattern of neglect and make sure this neglect never happens again (that last bit should involve people getting fired and a lot of apologizing). Surely we’ll have mold results next week. I mean, I know there’s mold. All you have to do is look around to see it – I’m pretty sure mold fibers are what has been holding the school together all these years. But is it the kind that will kill you? Only the CDC can tell for sure!

Asbestos-free air means that we set up the book fair yesterday morning. It looks pretty good! If y’all are interested in supporting our locked-up library (I mentioned the exposed asbestos in there right?), give a shout and I’ll send along the on-line link to our Scholastic fair.

This morning we headed down to the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo for a Girl Scout zoo day. I took only one picture because I am a terrible mother:

chucky2015

That’s Chucky. He is enormous. Ellie and I love him. We’ve never ever seen all of him at once so we were very excited.

I tell you what. There were some badly behaved scouts there today. I was embarrassed to be associated with them – especially since our own troop rocks the manners pretty hard.

Now that I’m writing again I bet y’all are already sick of me. Heehee.

Back to School

Ellie made it to school. On time even – although I had to run her lunch over later.

Our reasoning was this:
*It’s not like she wasn’t at school already during the fire watch.
*All the tests aren’t in but the super scary issue is acceptable (the results were reviewed by the EPA and I’ve actually seen the reports.).
*It’s not like they’ve ever sanded or prepped the walls before they painted them and even though it’s super likely they never properly sealed the lead paint, Ellie hasn’t eaten paint chips in the past two years. That we know of.
*Mold is scary, but Ellie isn’t crazy allergic. The asbestos was much more worrisome.

Just because she’s back in school doesn’t mean that this is over.

The library is locked because of exposed asbestos that they intend to encapsulate. The School Board will now be following EPA guidelines with regard to notification of the presence of asbestos and the training of their facilities staff (among other things).

There is still the question of why this has gone on for so long and are other buildings in the county as neglected? I also want to have the full history of the fire safety system and some accountability for the disastrous conditions of that. There’s much more, but those are the biggies today.

Partial Results

The air quality tests for asbestos have been returned and the presence of asbestos is within the EPA’s “it’s all good” limits. Which is such a relief! I’m giddy glad that we aren’t all breathing through asbestos-lined lungs. The Big Question of the morning is: Is the return of one test (albeit the scariest one) enough to convince us it’s safe to send her to school? None of the mold tests will be back for a few days, no telling about lead and asbestos dust. I heard that the Fire Marshal would be there today. So is one enough? What if we send her back and the place has 9x the legal limit for lead contamination? I’m not particularly interested in using my child’s health to make a show of good faith.

The press knew this afternoon about the results of the asbestos in the air. They didn’t report it until their news programs, of course. Parents weren’t notified until 9:30 last night. There’s something really wrong with that. Again we were notified by email (I replied to the superintendent and reminded him that up this way we don’t all have internet), but the Superintendent did attach PDFs of the reports substantiating the results. He at least as figure out that assertions of safety aren’t enough. I am grateful for that.

There’s been a lot of trouble with the media and the school system’s PR guy. The PR guy keeps saying things like, “…Board of Education said it does regular testing for mold and asbestos levels to ensure the children stay safe.” And we keep saying, “Then where are the records of these tests? If these tests have been done, just show us the results! You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if this were true just by just showing us the evidence!” And the press never ever questions the PR guy about it. Whatever happened to investigative journalism? I’ve told at least two reporters where to look for proof of that statement – all they have to do is make a phone call.

I’ve missed our little chats.

Scared

Let me tell you just a little bit more about what’s going on here.

Our town’s public elementary school is 90 years old. Which is neat because my grandmother went to school there and not so neat because it hasn’t been well maintained. The house where I live is also around 90 years old, it has been very well looked after.

When we first toured the school Ellie was in preschool. It was easy to notice the shabbiness. It’s 90 years old. Things get shabby. But it was also quaint and mades me think of Great Gran (who was still around then) and the main building looks like the school in A Christmas Story. The external wings are cinderblock nightmares – but that’s beside the point. I made the comment to the woman giving us the tour that the Alabama Fire Code must be much more relaxed than Georgia’s or Virginia’s (two states where I’ve had more than one encounter with Fire Marshals in public buildings). It was really really clear that the facility needed to be replaced about twenty-and-then-some years ago.

But I made some assumptions about how the people at the school had been dealing with this building for years. I assumed that the people who needed to be were On Top Of Things because the building was old and they knew it needed extra care. I assumed that the building was looked after and that all the old building problems (asbestos, lead paint, pipes and electrical problems) were well documented and kept in order. I assumed that the shabbiness was just day to day wear but that the building was OK underneath. And we decided to send her to kindergarten.

Y’all. Never assume.

At the beginning of this year when I started doing more PTO stuff, I started spending a whole lot more time in the buildings. When you spend time in places, you start to notice things. One day I was making copies in the workroom and looked up to see that the vents were completely filthy. Someone else said moldy looking. Then someone pointed out exposed wiring on the outside of the building. And peeling paint. And soft spots in the floor. And I wondered, if they aren’t looking after the stuff everyone can see…what about the stuff everyone can’t see? We started paying a lot more attention to the building.

Then one day in February, it turns out that it’s not that the Alabama Fire Code is more lenient, it’s just that nobody legitimate had inspected the building in years. The school was put on Fire Watch and all the smoke detectors were replaced faster than I’ve ever seen them do anything to that building. Fire Watch means there has to be an actual person walking around the school every 15 minutes to look for fires because the place is in such sad shape. There was never any information sent home to the parents about the fire safety issues.

Then the woman leading the charge called me and said, “Hey, have you read the EPA’s requirements for managing asbestos in public school buildings?” I hadn’t. But I did and I started to panic a little because there were a whole lot of those requirements that weren’t getting done. Not even a little bit. Not even for the kids who had passed through the school years before. Then I read the EPA’s requirements for lead paint in school buildings and got really mad. And really really scared.

After that, it was evidence gathering time. A copy of the school’s asbestos plan* was requested and we learned about all the rest of the EPA requirements that weren’t being met. We panicked some more at that point. But pulled ourselves together in time to read the Fire Marshal’s re-inspection of the building (we’re waiting on the copy from the initial visit) where a number of other violations were added to the originals of “keep your fire safety system in working order at all times” and “you must keep records” (those are paraphrased). The school has 21 days to get all of that fixed or he’s shutting the building down (that’s next week sometime). By the time the School Board meeting rolled around last week we were on the offense with evidence in hand. Our fearless leader waved large amounts of paper around and pointed out about a billion ways the asbestos is a problem and asked for air quality tests. Michael spoke about trust, the fire safety and suppression system and told them Ellie was staying home from school until they proved to us it was safe. Other parents are doing the same.

Last Saturday, we got the first direct communication from the school ever-at-all-ever about any of this. We were told in an email (unless there was one today, a hard copy has not been sent home to our largely rural community, many of our families do not have internet) that the school would have “environmental tests” the first of the week with results on Wednesday. The internet thinks that asbestos results take longer than that, but whatever. The Fire Watch stuff was not addressed in this email. No one has answered my emails asking what they are testing for, what company is doing the testing, whether or not the tests are random or comprehensive. I get more information from reporters who call the house than the school in which my child is enrolled. My requests for meetings have been refused – I was finally told that the Assistant Superintendent couldn’t see me until next week and would call on Monday. The EPA will be visiting on Thursday (that’s total hearsay by the way – but I feel better believing it).

There’s just so much wrong: badly managed asbestos, unsealed lead paint, mold, the roof, the walls, the flooding, the wiring that they replaced last week for the Fire Marshal in our asbestos lined building. This kind of decrepitude didn’t just happen. It took years of neglect for the building to get into such a state of disrepair. I want to know why the school keeps claiming that they do regular inspections and regular testing when their records don’t reflect that. No one doing regular fire inspections could miss the small appliances, chained extension cords, covered windows, walls completely covered in paper floor to ceiling. I didn’t miss them and it’s not even my job. Did anybody bother to mash the test buttons on the smoke detectors when they were inspecting or are our school’s 90-year-old ceilings just too high to bother? There’s an absolute flurry of activity at the school right now, I think they are trying to tend to every work order for the past ten years all in one week. Look how busy they are when people are watching. Why didn’t they just look after it when the problems first came up? It feels like the school system decided that the building just wasn’t worth the money. Which means that they decided that the kids weren’t worth it either.

Tomorrow is Wednesday.
Tomorrow we’ll see if sending Ellie to this school was the worst thing I have ever done to her.

*If you’ve got kids in a building old enough to have asbestos – constructed before the early 80s or so – you really ought to read this and request a copy of your school’s asbestos plan. According to federal law, the school must provide it to you within 5 days and is must (MUST) contain every inspection, training, location, damage, remediation and anything else that has to do with the asbestos in your facility. Your school is also supposed to notify parents each year about the presence of asbestos in the building as well as give notice anytime they are planning to do remodeling or construction since it might disturb the asbestos. Parents are also supposed to be notified yearly about lead paint in the building. For the record, asbestos and lead paint properly managed in place are not a problem. It’s when proper management is neglected, training ignored, and notification is nonexistent that problems happen.