Students and staff at School 15 in Jersey City won't be able to return to the school until the gym floor where mold was discovered last Thursday is replaced, school officials said yesterday.
 
This decision was arrived at Monday night in a meeting between school officials and parents at the Mary McLeod Bethune Center, a district spokesman said.

But Jeanette Booker, who has a grandniece enrolled at the Stegman Avenue school and attended Monday's meeting, characterized the district's response as late in coming.

The gym floor has flooded several times over the past few years, Booker said. There are also constant leaks from the roof and poor drainage in and around the school, she said. Last year, a rainwater puddle that formed inside the school was so big that parents formed a human chain to lift small children over it, Booker said.

"They (school officials) are not admitting the whole problem," Booker said. "I just think it's so wrong."
Charles Lombardi, the district's facilities director, reiterated yesterday that his only knowledge of flooding at the school was this past spring when vandals broke a "flush-o-meter" in the bathroom.

After the floor buckled, the district placed half-inch plywood on top of it to try and keep the floor in use. But that didn't work and the principal soon closed off the gym entirely.

The water would have evaporated if not for a plastic sheathing above the concrete subfloor that prevented the concrete from absorbing the excess moisture, Lombardi said.

That's what caused the mold that workers discovered Thursday when they began to rip up and remove the floor, Lombardi said.

The school's 600 students have been placed in three other sites.
"It'll only be four days to rip everything out and clean up (the mold)," Lombardi said. "But it will take four to five weeks for installation of the new floor."

Results from air samples taken at the school Monday should be available today, he said.
In response to requests from staff, the district is also testing for mold at Ferris and Dickinson high schools, he said.
Lombardi acknowledged drainage problems at the school and said his department is installing a bigger drain pipe and is cleaning catch basins. The 15-year-old roof has had occasional problems, but those have been dealt with, he said.

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