FAIRMONT – That’s the thing about mold. It comes back.
Marion County Schools Superintendent Donna Heston delivered that biology lesson, most basic, to Board of Education members earlier this week.
That is, where there’s high humidity, there just might be mold.
And where there’s standing water to go with that humidity – there will definitely be mold.
Which is what the district has been dealing with over the summer, and now into fall, at East Fairmont High School.
A spate of heavy rains over the summer, coupled with a chronically leaking roof, were the culprits that spawned the pesky growths in the weight room, the athletic trainer’s room and another health classroom at the school on Airport Road.
The mold has been knocked back for now, she told BOE members at their regular meeting Monday, but that doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere.
Standing water is still present in the affected areas, which, she said, also need the deployment of some old-fashioned elbow grease.
“The area is dirty,” she said. “Needs cleaned. It has needed cleaned.”
A professional crew has been contracted for that job, she said.
She’s also called for both the placement of additional dehumidifier units – plus a regular cleaning schedule for school custodians in the meantime.
That will mitigate the mold, she said.
For now, she said, with emphasis on “for now.”
That’s because the original roof of the 32-year-old school won’t be able to be replaced until this coming summer.
And the HVAC unit for the building, just a little younger, needs to be scrapped also, she said.
The $2.9 million price tag for the roof will be covered by $1.9 million from the district and the remaining balance from the state School Building Authority, the agency that doles out dollars for infrastructure projects in West Virginia’s 55 public districts.
Right now, there are no dollars for the HVAC work, Heston said.
“I didn’t even put in for that in the SBA request,” she said, “because frankly, we’re strapped for cash.”
Board member Tom Dragich said it wasn’t easy when the county was scrambling to build the school in the early 1990s.
He knows – because he was principal of East High at the time and was right in the middle of it all. The original school on Alta Vista had ventilation and structural issues, too – and there was a rush to get into the building in the fall of 1993, he said.
The Airport Road site for the then-new school wasn’t without its problems either, he remembered.
And it would be another four years, the former principal recounted, before air conditioning would be installed, which included large-scale ductwork.
“It’s a big school,” Dragich said.
In the meantime, Heston has closed the affected areas to students. School administration, she said, has also contracted with local fitness facilities so varsity athletes can continue their weight training regimens.
Related, board members also heard from members of East’s Local School Improvement Council, including Tracy Beckley, who gently chided the district. Parents, she said, could have been better informed.
Beckley’s two sons are good students, she said, who also play varsity sports.
One of her sons earlier began complaining of headaches with allergy-like symptoms, she said, even though he doesn’t have allergies.
“I have questions about the lack of communication,” she said. “I’m here because I want to make sure I’m being educated on what is actually happening.”
