Posted on Monday, 11th October 2010 by Marcus Gollan
State investigators are monitoring the air at Shakopee Middle School after a worker discovered black mold growing above classrooms.
That discovery prompted the school’s head custodian to quit her job recently over concerns that the school wasn’t doing enough to fix the problem.
Until last Friday, Yvonne Wastl was head custodian at Shakopee Middle School. She quit, saying the district was, “unaccepting of the fact that something needed to be done and saying we don’t want to spend money on that and basically just ignoring that there was an issue.”
It was Wastl’s job to climb above ceiling tiles and check the building’s heating and cooling system. That’s where Yvonne noticed the white insulation of cooling pipes covered in black mold.
It’s a concern because inhaling mold spores can lead to serious health problems. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, there is no safe level of mold for indoor air quality.
Before she left her job, Wastl photographed the mold covered pipes stretching above 24 of the 29 classrooms on the third floor. When she told her district bosses about her concerns, Wastl felt they didn’t take it seriously.
That’s when she decided to file a formal complaint with Minnesota OSHA, a branch of the Department of Labor and Industry which investigates workplace safety violations. After filing that complaint, Wastl resigned her position with the school.
Shakopee superintendent Jon McBroom said, “We take this stuff very seriously. If we felt there was a health threat we would inform the public and talk to our students and parents about that.”
McBroom says the 1970s building has undergone extensive renovations over the years but it will need more. He says a private contractor, Institute for Environmental Assessment, was hired to do air quality testing.
According to McBroom, ISA has assured the school that its indoor air quality shows no amount of mold present in the hallways or classrooms and the building is safe for students and staff.
“Again, we’re doing the air testing and the other testing just to assure there isn’t some problem getting away from us,” said McBroom.
The district is now working on the engineering plan to replace the aging and inefficient heating, cooling and ventilation system that’s at the core of the mold problem. Ineffective insulation on the cooling pipes is apparently causing the condensation to form, giving the mold the moist environment on which to grow.
The district expects the work to commence next summer at a cost of around $800,000.
Still, Wastl says blowing the whistle and leaving her job was well worth it in order to expose the problem.
“You do not let it grow, you clean it up and get it out of there because it’s not acceptable,” said Wastl.
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Tags: Mold, School Mold
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