Black Mold May Close School Until 2009

Black mold growing in the boy's bathroom at George Wolf Elementary School located in Bath, Northampton County, is the potential source of serious air quality concerns.Administrators are scrambling to find space for the rest of the school year.The mold issue is nothing new and even administrators admit that for years students and staffers have complained about a musty odor in the building and symptoms ranging anywhere from itching eyes to rashes and trouble breathing.Within the walls of the school lurks a potentially dangerous substance that administrators said may be making students and teachers sick."It just creeps me out," Lauren Yobe, a student, said.Construction workers found black mold last week while tearing down walls during renovations. Most of the building is closed and classes were suspended for the rest of the week."Both my children have allergies to mold and I have been fighting with the school for two years," Heather Smith, a parent, said.Smith said she told the district she was concerned there was mold after her youngest son, Logan, starting coming home from school with rashes and was having trouble breathing."He had exezma so bad the doctor pulled him out of school. It cleared up at home in three days but when he went back to school it started all over again," Smith said.Her older son, Hunter, said he's had problems breathing and concentrating in class."It really stresses me to have to go through all this," Hunter Smith said."There was one teacher last year that took an early retirement because she couldn't take it, so its been an ongoing problem," Heather SmithDistrict officials agree."We've had air quality tests. We had the Department of Labor, Department of Health and we've never had anyone say that building should be evacuated," Superintendent Dr. Linda Firestone said.Firestone said even now experts said the mold found poses no immediate threat. Still they believe the mold may have grown to other parts of the building and they've hired a company to come in to gut part of the school to get rid of the mold.The district is working on plans on where to place its students for the reminder of the year. They'll make that announcement at a meeting Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. at the Northampton High School cafeteria.They said the work to clean up the mold could take the rest of the year with majority of students unable to come back to George Wolf Elementary until sometime in 2009.