JACKSON – Mold was found in some classroom trailers, causing students to start the school year in classrooms.
Superintendent Nicole Pormilli said during a Board of Education meeting that there were issues at Lucy N. Holman, Switlik and Howard C. Johnson elementary schools “where we had to pivot quickly.”
Pormilli explained, “our trailers are very old. Our community knows that. Our staff knows that and our Board certainly knows that. They are definitely checked on a routine basis. This was not something visible on a routine check. At Switlik it was seen behind a book shelf and upon further exploration into the wall there was a leak coming in from the roof.”
“The leak was dripping down through behind the wall and there was some further mold found. We immediately shut down that trailer and investigated two other surrounding trailers close by and shut those down as well,” she added. “We did an extensive check moving furniture and there was nothing seen visually, however, out of safety and caution we said we should explore these further and felt we shouldn’t have students and staff in them while we were investigating further to make sure everyone was safe and sound.”
Pormilli said that eight full classes of students had to be transferred from the trailers into classrooms in buildings. “We also had to relocate several small group instruction groups into schools and also some child study team offices.”
“It was quite a task and took a lot of organizing quickly and a lot of physical manpower that went into relocating those staff and those students. I really have a lot of people to thank for their support. There were just so many people who just jumped in to help,” the superintendent said. “We all came in and make all those changes on a Saturday.”
“It was a long Saturday for us but it was done. We also had some people who came in on Sunday to make sure classes could resume. It also took a lot of support and flexibility from our teachers and staff. These are people who had just finished setting up their classrooms and we were now asking them to take them apart and put them back together in another space. They rose to the occasion. This all happened in two days,” she explained further.
“I want to thank the parents for their understanding and the transportation who had to reroute those students. She reported “we are keeping those three trailers obviously off line and we are bringing in a testing company to test some of our portables and some of our trailers. The portables are different. They are on a foundation of concrete, and are a little more sturdy, and could be usable for a longer period of time.”
Pormilli said those were tested first along with a few trailers “that were possibly in better shape than some of the others. Some of the preliminary reports seem positive but we don’t have any final reports. For the meantime everyone is staying put where they are because that is what is safe. It is working and we will keep everyone updated on the progress of this.”
Outside of that, “We had our normal bumps that we have at the beginning of the school year – ironing out times and such – but everything got worked out,” the superintendent said thanking the transportation team, support staff and bus drivers.
Pormilli noted that the school district had been able to “pull off some subscription late busing. As you recall late buses were cut from the budget and we know that is difficult for us to adjust to because students use those budgets to be able to participate in extracurriculars. At the very last moment we were able to pull together some turnaround in that and were able to provide 160 students who are able to take advantage of that subscription busing.”
