March 13, 2008

Five years ago, when mold problems began surfacing at the old Hamilton Avenue School and other buildings, school district officials implemented a program to help identify and prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.

But now they admit the program was not uniformly put into practice across the district.

"Everyone was trained," Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg said of the program called Tools for Schools. "It was variably implemented from school to school."

Tools for Schools is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program designed to raise awareness about air quality issues, including assembling committees of teachers, administrators, parents and custodians who work together to identify early indicators of mold and other problems.

School officials came under fire on Tuesday night from the Board of Estimate and Taxation Budget Committee, which questioned why mold problems discovered at the Hamilton Avenue School modular buildings were identified only a couple of weeks ago. They should have been more aggressive in scrutinizing possible mold situations, committee members said, because it was mold that forced the rebuilding of the old Hamilton Avenue School and the purchase of the $3 million modular buildings several years ago.

"I was frankly surprised," BET member Robert Stone said yesterday. "This is a lesson that clearly should have been learned four years ago."

Stone is calling on the district to implement a program to visually inspect classrooms and school space on a regular basis to ensure potential problems are caught early.

Sternberg and other officials said design and construction flaws rather than maintenance shortcomings caused the mold problems at the modulars. They said roof leaks reported months earlier at the modulars were properly addressed and not connected to the mold found inside the walls and in the roof eaves.

Still, an environmental consultant hired by the school district has said the ceiling of one of the classrooms affected by the roof leaks had some mold growth.

BET members said that because taxpayers are going to have to shoulder the cost associated with this latest Hamilton Avenue School mold problem, the district must have a better prevention plan.

"This is going to be something that we're going to have to prevent going forward," said Michael Mason, head of the BET budget committee.

The district is expected to face more questions tonight during a public hearing scheduled for 7 p.m. at Central Middle School, 9 Indian Rock Lane.

Mike Bodson, the Board of Education liaison for the school's building committee, said that during the meeting, he will give a progress update on the new Hamilton Avenue School construction, which has already experienced a year delay because of various setbacks.

Town and school officials walked through the new Hamilton Avenue School building construction site yesterday.

"People walked away with a general sense that progress is being made," Bodson said of the building tour, led by officials from the general contractor, Worth Construction.http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/local/scn-gt-betmar13,0,579474.story

-- Staff writer Andrew Shaw contributed to this report.
 
 
 ####
Pure Air Control Services
800-422-7873