INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Bookcases are being moved at Osceola Magnet School, and parts of walls removed to see if mold has formed in them.

Mold has been found in a handful of classrooms in the school and in Sebastian River High School, where remediation work already has begun. An environmental hygienist recently recommended the district check all rooms at Osceola Magnet to see if there are additional mold problems.

"We're just moving ahead and doing what we said we were going to do," said the district's Risk Management Director Gerry Koziel.

Osceola parents and teachers have been complaining since the September hurricanes that mold in the classrooms in the third-grade wing is making them ill.

Osceola Magnet Principal Pat Trimble said he got new complaints from parents with children in other classrooms of the school.

"We felt we needed to go ahead and (check) the whole school," Trimble said.

Parents asked the School Board at its Tuesday meeting to find alternative classrooms at the school for their children.
 
Board members told parents the district was doing as much as possible to handle the situation.

Portable classrooms are not an option, because it would take about four to six weeks to deliver them and set them up, Koziel said. By that time, the school year would be over, he said.

Trimble said Osceola children can't be moved because of space limitations at the school.

"I don't really have any other place to move them," he said. If he puts classes in the school's media center, Trimble said, he then would have to move the school librarian to another location.

District officials repeatedly have said the school is safe, despite parents' concerns their children are becoming ill while at school. Trimble said there has not been an increase in the number of children absent or going home sick more than the number at this time last year.

Koziel said if tests show severe remediation is needed, students would be moved at that time.

A schedule for remediation has been established to clean up the school and eliminate any mold, Koziel said. Updates will be submitted each week, and delivered to parents in the school's newsletter, he said.

Four teachers at Sebastian River High School were moved to portable classrooms about two weeks ago because of mold found behind drywall in their classrooms, Koziel said.

"We felt that was the safest thing to do," he said. SRHS sustained roof damage during the hurricanes, which caused mold to develop, he said. The district is in the process of repairing the roof, which should eliminate any additional problems, Koziel said.

The portables were relocated from Glendale Elementary.

Koziel said a remediation schedule similar to the one at Osceola Magnet has been created for the SRHS's V wing, where most freshman classes are conducted.

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