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Mold Found In Four Klein Schools


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story in today's chron.com

I was at one of the schools mentioned in this story today, watching big double-wide trailers being trucked in. I heard that there might be as many as 30 of them, at one campus. All facilities will be shut down inside the school, including cafeteria, library, clinic, computers, everything, while the remediation takes place, which could be closer to taking the entire school year to fix.

I talked with someone there and asked if they were there to work on the mold problem. He said that he was on site to do the computer removal. I commented that was good, because if he is able to take computers out of the school, that meant that the library books and equipment were not contaminated and could also be removed (to the trailers). He said that actually they did a study already and found out that the air quality inside the school (which has been SHUT DOWN for mold remediation purposes) is actually BETTER than the outside air, and that if I were him, I'd be a lot more concerned about what kind of effect the potential GRAND PARKWAY would have on air quality.... :angry:

story from KHOU

Nagging question:

There are other schools in the Klein district that are either thirty years old also or are approaching that age. Does this mean that they may be affected also, but since no renovations were scheduled at those buildings in the last bond election, that they are in effect "time bombs" with mold, waiting to be discovered when they get approved for renovations in yet another bond election?

And yet another:

At the elementary schools in question, there have sometimes been one or two trailers based on attendance fluctuations. When high winds, thunderstorms with heavy rain or tornado watches were in effect, these children in these buildings were always brought into the cafeteria for shelter. If (really, when) this happens during this school year, where will these children be evacuated too? All 1,000 of them?

I wonder if KISD will consider letting parents get vouchers to private schools....

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Have you seen the commercial where people are screaming, and then the screen says, "Every house has mold"?

You live in Houston. Every house (and school) has mold. There has never been a study done by anyone reputable that says mold is toxic. Check the CDC on mold for more info.

Now, if you want toxic, start sniffing those fancy new wall-to-wall carpets in your new house.

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From this article:

"The mold has not harmed air quality in the schools, she said."

So, why are we spending taxpayer money to do anything? It's not asbestos. Honestly, no need to get your panties in a twist.

Now, if you want toxic, start sniffing those fancy new wall-to-wall carpets in your new house.

:breathes: Mmm. That's the stuff.

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So, your take on this situation, is that KISD is being scammed out of millions of taxpayer dollars by this whole mold remediation thing, right? Boy, the next school board meeting should be a real hoot! :lol:

DSC00780.jpg

The trailers begin arriving to replace the school buildings shut down for mold.

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This mold thing is really agravating me. Do you think it's anything different in south Louisiana than here. It the same climate yet there is no mold problem. It's because it a false problem created by lawyers for money.

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Whether or not you "believe" in the mold problem, the big question to me, personally, is the management issues of almost 1,000 elementary schoolchildren in 30 double-wides on a playground in the event of a tornado warning. And the issue of transferring to another school until the mold remediation problem is over, what will be covered, if anything, financially?

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So, your take on this situation, is that KISD is being scammed out of millions of taxpayer dollars by this whole mold remediation thing, right? Boy, the next school board meeting should be a real hoot! :lol:

DSC00780.jpg

The trailers begin arriving to replace the school buildings shut down for mold.

The scam that is being perpetrated is by the taxpayers on their own selves! All these uppity asses screaming that mold is killing them, just like the b*tch that started it in Austin, get no sympathy from me. Have they never heard of chlorine?

These are the same people who have their homes sealed so tight that air cannot get out, so as to protect themselves from outside pollution, when in fact the inside air is the worst air they can breathe.

The school district has no choice but to accomodate them, lest they end up as THE BIG STORY on Channel 2.

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Nice diatribe, but the taxpayers whose children attend these schools weren't at the forefront of this nightmare, begging for mold remediation. The engineers for the district were the ones who discovered it and called for this radical course of action. Nice generalizations about people and their homes.... :blink: What that had to do with any of this is beyond me, but whatever... It would be hard to believe that the air inside could be actually worse than the air outside, according to this:

ghasp.org publication from June 2005

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A quick google search will get you plenty of info about indoor air, and the fact that today's airtight construction traps a lot of it inside. Do a search on fumes coming from today's building materials, as well. You may find yourself wishing for a little good, old-fashioned, natural mold.

The point of my diatribe, apparently missed, was that since I don't consider the mold harmful, I don't think you need to put the kids in trailers...the same trailers I sat in in 1978 at Klein High, with no adverse effects.

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The point of my diatribe, apparently missed, was that since I don't consider the mold harmful, I don't think you need to put the kids in trailers...the same trailers I sat in in 1978 at Klein High, with no adverse effects.

I'm no expert on mold... but, I have heard that there are different TYPES of mold, and since the ENGINEERS made this call from the DISTRICT, not a bunch of screaming homeowners, I have to wonder if it may be serious, since our district doesn't have a boatload of extra money for something like this. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's still a bunch of trailers taking up space at Klein High these days. Hopefully, that campus will get a facelift sooner or later, it looks really dumpy compared to Klein Collins... :lol:

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Somebody has been watching too much Dateline NBC.
'Tisn't me, I detest Stone Phillips, John Stossel, Barbara Walters, others like them.... :lol:

On a side note: I saw Diane Sawyer interview on Good Morning America, the sister of Elizabeth Smart (shame on her parents, btw...) Diane asked the girl what bothered her the most these days, and the little girl looks right at Diane and tells her she really hates people who pretend to be interested in her just to hear her story about the kidnapping. The camera goes to Diane who (in soft focus, natch) all teary-eyed who looks at the girl and says, "So, tell us about that day..." :blink:

go over to my tipping thread and smack talk me there, too.
:lol:
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DSC00784.jpg

Trailer #10 arrives at Northampton Elementary....

story in today's chron.com

Guess where I'll be Friday night....

story in Houston Community Newspapers

You gonna be doing mold remediation, pineda? :P

Actually, the article said the mold did not affect air quality. It did suggest that the water causing the mold could affect the structure itself, so this work is a sound response to protect the building. I had been under the impression that this was a "toxic mold" scam, which it is clearly not.

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You gonna be doing mold remediation, pineda?

Nope, I'm going there to support the principal of my child's school.

I'm pretty sure she has had many, many sleepless nights worrying about the ramifications of the mold reports at the school, and I want to be there as a positive force, not a negative one.

Yes, having almost 1,000 students in trailers that has a by-product also causes these children to lose their entire playground sucks big time, but it is supposed to be a temporary situation and even under these adverse conditions, can be dealt with in a positive way, if we can all work together and try to support the school's staff.

As I understand it so far, the library books won't be moved to trailers after all, but the computers will be. We will lose access to morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up by cars and the backdoor walkers will be walking quite a ways longer now. There will be no hot cafeteria food served, only sack lunches prepared at the nearby Klein Oak High School, and I'm not sure yet what the situation will be for evacuation during tornado watches/warnings when the students aren't supposed to be in trailers at all. So many questions, so many issues, or as my friend would say, "so many opportunities"...

This is clearly a situation that the staff and administration did not create and have little control over, so why vent at them? I save my anger for the Grand Parkway... :lol:

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Nope, I'm going there to support the principal of my child's school.

I'm pretty sure she has had many, many sleepless nights worrying about the ramifications of the mold reports at the school, and I want to be there as a positive force, not a negative one.

Yes, having almost 1,000 students in trailers that has a by-product also causes these children to lose their entire playground sucks big time, but it is supposed to be a temporary situation and even under these adverse conditions, can be dealt with in a positive way, if we can all work together and try to support the school's staff.

As I understand it so far, the library books won't be moved to trailers after all, but the computers will be. We will lose access to morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up by cars and the backdoor walkers will be walking quite a ways longer now. There will be no hot cafeteria food served, only sack lunches prepared at the nearby Klein Oak High School, and I'm not sure yet what the situation will be for evacuation during tornado watches/warnings when the students aren't supposed to be in trailers at all. So many questions, so many issues, or as my friend would say, "so many opportunities"...

This is clearly a situation that the staff and administration did not create and have little control over, so why vent at them? I save my anger for the Grand Parkway... :lol:

Thanks Pineda -- we will need the support of all the community on this issue. The opportunity will be a long term one that some of the problems (flooding outside the school) and updates needed for the school will be addressed as the district fixes the mold issue. Hopefully by the Friday evening some of the logistics of the issues that you have mentioned in your post will be addressed by KISD.

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This is a photo of mold actively growing on the carpet of a teacher's classroom at Northampton Elementary School:

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Discard porous materials with evidence of mold growth. Evidence of mold growth consists of visible mold or mold odors emanating from the material. Examples include, paper fiber gypsum board, ceiling tiles, insulation, wall coverings, carpet, leather, unprotected composite or engineered wood products. Such items are not easily salvaged and it is not often cost-effective to remove the mold. Instead, it is usually best to bag or wrap the materials in plastic and discard.

The above is a quote from the Mold Remediation project going on in a different school, outlining their procedures for removing mold from their schools. It was quite detailed, about 50 pages worth, unlike the two to three pages given out at Northampton Elementary School.

"Northampton School Meeting with the Principal"

Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005

5:00 - 6:00 pm

Inway Clubhouse

All parents of NH Elementary students are welcome.

Why? If you have any questions regarding the changes in the upcoming school year Jane McKetta, principal, will be there to answer your questions.

See Kleinisd website for more info.

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At the Mold Remediation meeting at Northampton Elementary School in Spring, Tx. last Friday night, we heard the procedures that they plan to take to remediate the mold problem, but removal of the carpeting that was just installed about two years ago was not mentioned. Since there is mold actively growing on the carpetted areas in some of the teacher's classrooms, shouldn't all the affected carpet be removed? Or can moldy carpetting just be steam-cleaned and disinfected to be deemed safe? What about stained ceiling tiles or spongy drywall? Replacement, or just a "good cleaning"?

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DSC00811.jpg

You can see the trailers to your right. There are about 50 of them there on the playground now.

A plan is being discussed between Klein ISD and Northampton MUD at this time to have crushed concrete laid down to the left of this road for cars to pull up, let their children out, cross the road and go and find their assigned trailer. Immediately adjacent to the left of this proposed gravel drive is the U.P.R.R. tracks, an active train track line. :(

One additional concern is that of the close proximity to the vehicular traffic along Root Road to the trailers at Northampton Elementary. Will the vehicular smog emissions affect the air quality inside of the trailers closest to the road? :(

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This is a photo of mold actively growing on the carpet of a teacher's classroom at Northampton Elementary School:

If I had known that there was going to be this big to-do about mold on carpet, I would've long since filed suit against my old high school and what was growing in the swimming pool changing rooms. (What's green and brown and black and red and fuscia all over?) :sick:

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Yeah, that swimming pool changing room does sound gross. Okay, really gross! :lol: This carpet photo at Northampton Elementary was taken in a classroom where 4 and 5 year olds regularly crawl around on, sit on, lay down on, do their "circle time" work together on. So, they're in very close proximity to the mold and their immune systems aren't quite built up like say a high-schooler's would be. Just wondering if a good vacuuming and maybe steam cleaning is all that's needed to fix it all up again so that the mold doesn't re-appear later and/or compromise the health of the children. I've never had to go through a mold remediation process either at home, school or any workplace, so I'm not really sure what's involved here, but I am more than a little worried that the mold remediation had to take place immediately and involve total evacuation of all students and staff and have all the bricks removed one-by-one by workers in white suits and respirators while 50 trailers full of elementary age children and their teachers are right next to the mold remediation site with no protection from the airborne particles that will be disturbed during this process, and yet the school district claims that the air quality inside the school is safe the whole time. If it really was safe, why the immediacy, why the complete and total evacuation, why not have the mold remediation workers work at night and on weekends so as to further safeguard the health of the children and minimize the risk of accidental exposure of airborne particulates to them, and if the Klein ISD is essentially rebuilding the building brick by brick, why don't they just bulldoze it and start over? :(

(Someone just sent me this link and I'm going to check it out!)

School Mold Help

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Today's drive-by photo of the trailers at Northampton Elementary. Multiply this row of trailers by three and you have a good idea of what it looks like. There will be one trailer for the girls and boys restrooms, and because the walkways will not be covered when school starts, the district has allowed Northampton Elementary to purchase 75 umbrellas. If the school has close to 1,000 students and staff, what good will 75 umbrellas do?

DSC00817.jpg

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chron.com story about Northampton, Haude and Greenwood Forest mold problems

At forums hosted by the district, some parents suggested it would be better to split the schools, temporarily placing pupils at other campuses.

Superintendent Jim Cain told parents splitting the campuses up would hurt school spirit and could affect pupil academic performance.

Amazing that the Superintendent apparently thinks that keeping school spirit high is more important than safeguarding elementary school-aged childrens' health and safety. When did school morale take precedence over the health and safety of those children? Go Northampton (cough, cough, sniffle) Colts!

Some parents also suggested testing the air quality in those trailers brought in from around the country and posting those results publicly before filling the trailers full of kids, but the district's response was one of silence. Strange because that's actually something that could affect pupil academic performance...

from BAQ, Inc., mold in portable classrooms is a problem

The following is about an elementary school in the Katy area two years ago that closed temporarily due to mold problems as indicted by the same expert, Travis West of BAQ, Inc., who discovered the problem at Northampton Elementary. But notice in this story, the district decided moving the children out of harm's way was more important than maintaining school spirit...

The Katy Independent School District will move students and staff at West Memorial Elementary School to two temporary locations for the remainder of the school year to allow abatement of mold in the 29-year old building. Classes at the school will be suspended for the week of March 18-22 to allow the district to prepare the temporary locations and complete logistical requirements.

Students in kindergarten through fifth grade will be relocated to the new ninth grade center at Cinco Ranch High School. Pre-kindergarten classes will move to Nottingham Country Elementary. All West Memorial Elementary parents are being contacted by telephone to inform them about the plan and will receive a letter early next week with more detailed information. A parent meeting is scheduled for the Cinco Ranch High School Performing Arts Center, Monday, March 18, 7 p.m., and an open house at the two locations will be held Thursday, March 21, 7-8:30 p.m.

Following concerns expressed by staff and parents, the district has conducted a series of air quality tests at the school. The latest indoor air quality survey, which was conducted by Building Air Quality (BAQ) of The Woodlands, indicates that several areas along perimeter walls of the building have been compromised by moisture intrusion. This moisture on wall and carpet surfaces resulted in the development of a variety of molds. According to Travis West of BAQ, laboratory analysis of samples taken at the school indicated that several classrooms had elevated spore counts in carpeting and a number of wall cavities.

West also conducted extensive testing to look for mold spores, both airborne and on horizontal surfaces. None of the tests indicated that the spores found in carpeting or walls had become airborne or had settled on surfaces in classrooms. None of the airborne tests taken in the "breathing zone" of the school, he noted, indicated elevated spore levels when compared to outdoor air samples.

BAQ outlined two remediation options. The first was to isolate affected walls and remove carpeting while continuing to hold classes in other parts of the open-concept building. The second, to remediate all compromised walls and remove damaged carpeting to eliminate all affected materials, would require closing the facility and moving students for the duration of the school year to a site or sites off campus.

According to Dr. Leonard Merrell, superintendent of schools, the district selected the option to move classes rather than to conduct the abatement while using the building. "The decision," he said, "was clear. Once the test results came back, we knew we needed to relocate to an alternate site. We will not compromise the health and safety of our children, staff members and volunteers. This relocation gives us the opportunity to have school in a safe, positive environment while we move forward as quickly and diligently as possible with correcting the problems that exist in the building."

Key staff members representing every area of the district spent several days this week reviewing options for alternate locations and developing the multi-faceted logistical process that will allow the move to be made in one week.

The plan was facilitated by the fact that the construction schedule at the Cinco Ranch ninth grade center was several weeks ahead of time, allowing the district to occupy strategic parts of the building early. Classes will be located in regular classrooms with physical education in the cafetorum. Because the kitchen has not been completed, food service for breakfast and lunch will take place in a large open area of the center

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