Mold is found in trailer housing kindergarten

Monday, October 22, 2007
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Two trailers full of kindergarten students in Jersey City had to be emptied last week after school officials confirmed the presence of mold.

The mold was discovered in a corner of one of the 40-year-old trailers, said School 16 Principal Joseph Marsella. But as a precautionary measure, the class in the adjacent trailer was relocated inside the Washington Street schoolhouse as well, Marsella said.

Even though the tests - originally conducted Sept. 27, but not returned to the district until Thursday morning - confirmed the presence of mold, the concentration of mold spores isn't considered harmful to people, according to environmental consultants hired by the district, Marsella said.

In fact, the consultant - PMK Group of Cranford - found the concentration of mold spores to be higher outside the trailer than it was inside, Marsella said.

"We were told it's safe," Marsella said Thursday. "We met with parents this morning. We are sending letters home to all the parents tonight."

The roughly 42 students were relocated to the school's art and music rooms, and could expect to return to their classrooms in about a week, he said.

The area where mold was found will be replaced and washed with bleach, he said.

The test was conducted in response to a complaint from a teacher "who was having trouble with her throat," Marsella said.

Told about the mold discovery, Cristina Weiner, who has a first-grader and a sixth-grader at the elementary school, said, "I think he (Marsella) will definitely handle it. We have high standards here."

Students at School 15 on Stegman Street were recently displaced for more than a week when mold was discovered beneath a soaked gym floor.

On channel 2 today at 5 pm, they report about mold found in a trailer classroom at P.S. 16 in Paulus Hook.

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MOLD SCHOOL REPAIR
May open doors sooner

Tuesday, September 25, 2007
By KEN THORBOURNE
JERSEY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Construction workers are digging up the sidewalk in front of School 15 in Jersey City, but it has nothing to do with the mold problems that emptied the 600-student elementary school just over a week ago.

School officials said they are taking advantage of the school being empty to deal with a long-standing drainage problem that results in a big puddle forming at the entrance when it rains.

Specifically, school officials are having the catch basins and drain pipes surrounding the 36-year-old schoolhouse flushed and cleared with high-pressure water and a snake, said Charles Lombardi, the district's facilities director.

The work, which should be finished by midweek, is being carried out by the city's Municipal Utilities Authority and Jersey City-based Guarini Plumbing, Lombardi said.

Meanwhile, the gym floor where mold was discovered on Aug. 13 has been completely removed, Lombardi said.

The next steps are to wipe down the area, test for mold again, and then install a new gym floor, which should take four to five weeks, he said.

The current plan is move students - currently assigned to two other locations - back into the Stegman Street school when all the work is finished.

But that could change in light of test results for mold taken at the school last week, said Gerard Crisonino, spokesman for Superintendent of Schools Charles T. Epps Jr.

Based on five indoor air samples, an environmental firm hired by the district concluded the school was "safe" since the "fungal structures per cubic meter" was "extremely low." An outdoor test sample contained more than triple the number of fungal structures that was found inside, the consultants said.

There are no state or federal standards for mold, since individuals have widely divergent susceptibility to the fungus, according to the consultant and state officials.

The decision to return students to the school would be made with parents, Crisonino said.

Tests for mold at Ferris High School came back negative, and the district is still awaiting test results at Dickinson High School, Lombardi said.

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New drainage system for School 15
by Ken Thorbourne
Monday September 24, 2007, 2:49 PM

Work crews are installing a new drainage system at School 15 in Jersey City because of what school officials say is a problem with water collecting in puddles in front of the building.

Workers were digging up Stegman Street today in front of the school, while it is closed to students because of a mold problem .

District officials say the inadequate drainage system has nothing to do with the water that collected in the gym and that triggered the mold problem.

An environmental testing firm later found no significant danger from the mold.

I go to Ferris

Havent seen any mold, but plenty of wet marks on the tiles.

I know that something leaked and they redid the gym or something.

Jersey City schools chief: Mold is harmless

by Jason Fink -- Jersey Journal
Thursday September 20, 2007, 6:12 PM

The Jersey City school district released a statement tonight saying tests done on the mold that shut down School 15 last week found "no hazard."

"The results from the five indoor ambient air samples tested by Pennoni Associates, Inc. show that the levels of mold are quite low and do not pose a hazard," Schools Superintendent Charles Epps said in a written statement. "We closed the school as a precaution, out of concern for students and staff, and we have since learned that it wasn't necessary."

Epps said the district has decided to keep the school closed until after he meets with parents on Oct. 1.

School officials said five indoor and one outdoor air samples were taken -- two from the gymnasium, three from the east, northwest and southwest hallways and one outdoors from the south of the building.

Pennoni Associates described the indoor results as "insignificant," according to Epps.

Since Friday, the elementary school's staff and 600 students have been reassigned to three other locations.

School officials said the gym floor flooded in the spring when vandals broke the "flush-o-meter" on a toilet. The floor never completely dried out due a layer of plywood that was placed on top of the buckled wood and a plastic sheathing that encases the gym's concrete subfloor.

More mold in the Jersey City public schools

by N. Clark Judd
Monday September 17, 2007, 1:52 PM

The Jersey City public schools' mold problem has spread to Ferris High School, Jersey City Education Association President Tom Favia confirmed today.

"There are cases of mold appearing and the Board (of Education) has already sent a crew down there this past week," Favia said. "They've been in the school the past week replacing walls, wherever the mold has appeared."

Favia added that paint is peeling from water damage in other areas of the school

According to Favia, teachers returning to school last week discovered mold in some classrooms. Favia said he personally saw mold in rooms on the first floor wing of the A building and the second floor near the gymnasium.

Favia, who used to teach at Ferris , said the mold was "spotty" throughout the school, and stems from roof problems that have plagued the school since it was built.

Favia said he has instructed teachers not to enter moldy rooms and to find other, fungus-free places to hold their classes.

Greenville: SCHOOL'S OUT

Monday, September 17, 2007
N. CLARK JUDD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Students moved because of moldy gym

Just when being back to school was starting to grow on students at Jersey City's School 15, the school was closed Friday when construction workers found mold under the gymnasium floorboards.

Starting today, students at the Whitney M. Young Jr. School will be reassigned to other schools, Superintendent of Schools Charles T. Epps Jr. said in a statement Friday. The students' school days will still begin and end in the courtyard at School 15, as usual, but students and staff won't go inside the building until "knowledgeable professionals determine that no safety concern exists," the statement said.

Several parents and guardians were frustrated that it took school officials to realize the mold condition still existed, especially since the repairs had been planned well in advance and were slated for completion during the summer.

"(The floor) sat last year through the school year, over the whole summer. How long has the mold been in the school?" asked Vermia Newton, whose 5-year-old twins started kindergarten at the school this year and attended pre-kindergarten there last year.

One woman with a grand-niece in the school says this is just the latest problem at the school.

"That whole school has been flooding for the longest," Jeannette Booker said. "With all that money from the construction company (Schools Construction Corp.), they never got that roof repaired."

Sylvia Wright, who said her 8-year-old grandson went to School 15 until she recently transferred him to a charter school, was also frustrated. "When I came in September I heard the gym floor was still the same," she said. "I walked over there, I said, 'Why is this floor still like this?'"

Wright added that there were other problems throughout the school, ranging from unsanitary bathrooms to loose banisters on the stairwells.

Board of Education spokesman Gerard Crisonino confirmed that water damage to the gym floor should have been repaired during the summer, but "construction delays" prevented that from happening.

Crisonino denied that conditions inside the school were unsafe beyond the existence of mold under the gym floorboards, which he said were pulled up for the first time Friday.

"It's an old school building," Crisonino said, "but everything still works."

Crisonino added the entire school will be checked for mold before students and staff are allowed back in.