03/31/08 - "What irks me about the formaldehyde is it could be a good five years before my kids get diagnosed,"

Why Doesn't School Board Member Leslie Moriarty Want The Hamilton Avenue School Parents To Independently Test The Contaminated Modular Classrooms?

Quote:

"We believe the protocol that has been used for the environmental testing is really high quality and we welcome any specialist you would like to bring to sit down with the specialist (who has) been in the building and has done the test to review the protocol and the methods involved and I think you would be satisfied," Board of Education member Leslie Moriarty told parents at a meeting Thursday.

HEADLINE:

Kids' health worries parents (Click Here For The Full Story)

By Hoa Nguyen
Greenwich Time - Staff Writer

Gina DeMartis' son had constant headaches and occasional nose bleeds. Mina Bibeault's daughter complained of frequent headaches and burning eyes, while her son often had a runny nose. Donna Ortoli's son also suffered from similar health ailments.

These three Hamilton Avenue School parents are among those worried that their children's health symptoms are linked to conditions at the modular school building. Officials shut down the school last month after officials found a significant mold infestation in the roof eaves and crawl space.

"My child has a cold now, is it related?" DeMartis asked. "Maybe the mold spores are on the books they got from the classroom? You don't know what to believe anymore."

With Hamilton Avenue School students dispersed to different schools across the town, parents are calling on the Board of Education to allow their own experts into the moldy modular buildings to perform their own tests and investigation....

"If the Board of Ed has nothing to hide, they should allow us in," Mina Bibeault said. "Board of Ed, if you feel 120-percent confident in your results, you should roll out the red carpet."

...Another indoor air quality specialist also not connected to the Hamilton Avenue School testing said there are no hard and fast rules.

"It's very hard to comment because there's no one size fits all answer," said Paula Schenck, assistant director of the Farmington-based Center for Indoor Environments and Health at the University of Connecticut. "You have to look at the individual situation."

She said while mold is easily cleaned from some furniture, particularly metal, it is more difficult to rid from paper and other organic materials. Schenck said that while some small amount of mold can be naturally occuring indoors, it should be kept to an absolutely minimum.

"It's complicated because what you don't want is mold growing on materials inside," Schenck said. "Mold is a very normal part of our ecology but you don't want it growing inside. It's not a healthy environment inside."

In addition to mold, parents also fear the presence of formaldehyde in the modulars. Schwartz said the chemical is present in ultra-low concentrations, but parents also dispute that finding and want their own tests. Formaldehyde causes cancer in lab animals and may cause cancer in humans, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"What irks me about the formaldehyde is it could be a good five years before my kids get diagnosed," Bibeault said.

PLEASE READ:

03/05/08 - The Unionized (Teamstewrs) School District Custodial Staff Are Suggesting That There Might Be A School District Coverup At Ham Ave School

03/12/08 - Why Was It Ok To Remove Dumpsters Of Contaminated Plywood, But Not OK To Remove School Desks And Chairs?

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03/14/08 - More testing is needed to determine the safety of the classrooms before architects and engineers will go in to investigate the mold

The Little Children Of Hamilton Avenue "Were Never In Danger", But The Big Strong Architects And Engineers Told School Officials That "More Testing Was Needed" Before They "Can Go In And Investigate" The Cause Of The Mold.

Betty "You Can Trust Me" Sternberg Knows What's Best For The Little Children Of Hamilton Avenue And Glenville Schools.

The Insensitive And Patronizing School Superintendent Betty Sternberg Thinks That Hamilton Avenue Parents Are A Bunch Of Silly Little Cry Babies For Standing Up And Protecting Their Children.

Quote:

“I don’t want to minimize the disruption and the hardship, but I also want to say that sometimes I have found that children are more easily adaptable to this kind of thing than our adults,” Betty Sternberg said. “It’s incumbent upon the adults involved in this to make the best of a difficult situation.”

For The Record:

If A Small Child Says No To Betty "You Can Trust Me" Sternberg, Then That Child Would Most Likely Be Suspended From School.

With Return of Mold, Students Are Displaced
New York Times

By SARAH N. LYNCH

FOR nearly three years, students at the Hamilton Avenue School have been reporting to class in temporary buildings while their school was being rebuilt after an outbreak of mold prompted the district...

...long construction delays have continued to wear their patience as their children have had to make due without a gymnasium and other facilities that children in other Greenwich schools take for granted. This month, they received more bad news: The mold is back.

This time, it was discovered in the temporary buildings after the school brought in a consultant in February to fix a leak in the roof...

...The Greenwich Boys and Girls Club offered to take in 75 children for the week to help ease the burden, but none of the children received regular instruction ...

...Furious, parents staged a picket line outside the Board of Education building on March 3. That evening, they returned to the building for an emergency meeting where they were told that all Hamilton Avenue children would be dispersed by grade level and class to six schools throughout the town, possibly for the rest of the year. School officials hope the rebuilt school will be ready by the fall.

The solution did not please many parents.

“I think they are using our children like little pawn pieces in a chess game,” said Mina Bibeault, who has two young children in Hamilton Avenue. “They can just move the kids around without considering anything. They knew there were leaks in the building.”...

...But the series of incidents has revived long-held feelings among some parents that their school gets short shrift because it is in a poorer section of town. When they picketed, some of the parents held signs that read: “Rich town, poor school.”

Laura DiBella, the former president of the Hamilton Avenue School Parent Teacher Association, said officials were slow to respond from the beginning of the mold problem. “I’m not saying this particular Board of Education or this particular group of people under the superintendent feels that way, but a lot of people assume that poor people are stupid and that it’s easy to get things by them,” Mrs. DiBella said....

But Betty "You Can Trust Me" Sternberg Says Mima Bibeault And Laura DiBella Are Wrong...

...Sternberg said that in her year and a half as superintendent, she had “looked very carefully at issues of equitable allocation of resources” and that Hamilton Avenue had “received more resources because they have greater needs than other communities.”...

FOR ONCE BETTY "You Can Trust Me" STERNBERG IS RIGHT

FOR EXAMPLE:

Hamilton Avenue Children Got Exposed To More Contamination Than Any Other Greenwich School Child. In fact, They Got So Much More Contamination That School District Architects And Engineers Want More Tests Before They Can "Go In To" Investigate The Cause Of The Contamination.

....The Board of Education set up a committee to investigate the causes of the mold, said Nancy Weissler, the chairwoman of the board. Officials were told last week that more testing is needed to determine the safety of the temporary buildings before architects and engineers can go in to investigate the cause of the mold.

ALSO:

Schools didn't follow mold policy
Greenwich Time, CT - Mar 13, 2008
By Hoa Nguyen

Five years ago, when mold problems began surfacing at the old Hamilton Avenue School and other buildings, school district officials ...

03/05/08 - The Unionized (Teamstewrs) School District Custodial Staff Are Suggesting That There Might Be A School District Coverup At Ham Ave School.

MORE NEWS ABOUT FORMALDEHYDE IN TRAILERS:

Toll of toxic trailers
New Statesman, UK - Mar 13, 2008
Emails from its legal department advised that testing for the toxin "would imply Fema ownership of the issue" and that the agency would have no option but ...
FEMA knew its trailers posed a risk Canon City Daily Record
Documents Feed Debate on FEMA Trailers The Associated Press
Trailers don’t pass muster Helena Independent Record

Formaldehyde Exposure Standards

On December 4, 1987, the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a comprehensive regulation covering occupational exposure to formaldehyde at 29 CFR 1910.1048. This rule reduced the permissible exposure limits (PELs) to 0.75 part formaldehyde per million parts of air (ppm) as an 8-hour time-weighted average (TWA), and established a 2 ppm 15-minute short term exposure limit (STEL).

The comprehensive standard also included an "action level" of 0.5 ppm, measured as an 8-hour TWA, and provisions for employee formaldehyde exposure monitoring, medical surveillance, recordkeeping, emergency procedures, preferred methods to control formaldehyde exposure, selection of personal protective equipment, & hazard communication. OSHA's ruling was based upon consideration of new evidence including animal bioassays and epidemiological evidence, and the recognition of formaldehyde as a potential occupational carcinogen and its irritating and sensitizing effects.

Shame on

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- Heywood Brown, The Miracle of Debs, "New York World", October 23, 1926

03/05/08 - "I don't think they looked into the water problem," Mina Bibeault said. "We've put up with a lot and they've put our kids at risk."

Hamilton Avenue School student Courtney Roina, 6, joins other students and parents protesting outside the Board of Education in central Greenwich
(Bob Luckey Jr./Staff photo)

Was it maintenance or design flaws?

Greenwich Time, CT

By Martin B. Cassidy

After the sudden closing of Hamilton Avenue School after the discovery of mold throughout temporary classrooms, Mina Bibeault wondered if the Board of Education missed a chance to tackle the contamination with routine maintenance.

Bibeault, who has two children at the school, said there had been complaints earlier in the year about water leaking into the building, well before the investigation of a roof leak in a fifth-grade classroom last week found the mold problem....

... "This is about me getting a call on Saturday that my children will not be able to go to school on Monday," said Hector Ruiz, a former co-president of the school's PTA.

Exposure to toxic allergens produced by mold can trigger respiratory and sinus infections, skin irritation, and more severe respiratory conditions in the young and those with weakened immune systems, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Whether and how soon the modulars on the campus of Western Middle School could be opened again depends on a variety of factors, a town health official and building professionals said.

Mold, which is a fungus, grows faster in warmer temperatures, but also spreads if moisture, oxygen and organic matters are available, they said.

The extent of the mold growth in the school is still unknown, but condensation found within the walls and roof areas of the building this weekend raise serious health questions, said Michael Long, director of Greenwich Department of Health's environmental services division....

MORE:

03/05/08 - The Joke Of The Day - "I'll hold the staff accountable," Superintendent of Schools Betty Sternberg promised. - Yeah Right.

03/04/08 - First Selectman Peter Tesei promised to address the issue of accountability later on.

03/03/08 - Parents Bring Protest To The "Oldie Moldie" School Administrators

03/02/08 - Another Administrative Screw Up - "They let it happen again. Shame on them. They should be fired," said Laura Dibella past PTA president.

02/28/08 - Greenwich Children Left Behind

02/27/08 - Once Again Failed Greenwich School Administrators Take Care Of Thier Own

02/27/08 - Greenwich Taxpayers Pay Through The Nose As Administrators Mismanage The Greenwich Public School System

02/27/08 - School Board Coverup? - Are Displaced Hamilton Avenue Students Getting Rained On?

03/03/08 - Parents Bring Protest To The "Oldie Moldie" School Administrators

Greenwich Roundup Photo

Headline:

Parents protest school construction delays

Reporter:

Ken Borsuk

Source:

Greenwich Post - Greenwich,CT

Quote:

“The Board of Education and town have failed us as a community,” PTA member Mina Bibeault told the Greenwich Post outside of the Havemeyer Building Monday morning. “They’ve failed us in so many ways. We want answers. Our kids mean something to us. We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, literally.”

Story:

With the modular classrooms closed for at least a week and the prospect of their children being dispersed to other schools, Hamilton Avenue School parents took to the streets in protest Monday morning.

More than 30 parents and children picked up signs and picketed outside the Board of Education offices in response to the news that the modular classrooms the students have been in since spring 2005 would be closed for at least this week due to mold concerns from a leaky roof. Hamilton Avenue parents and children walked with messages such as “Deja Vu, Shame on You,” “No More Lies,” “Rich Town, Poor School” and “This is Greenwich?”

An emergency school board meeting is scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. in the Greenwich High School auditorium to discuss plans for the school. Nothing has been announced other than the school closure.

Ms. Sternberg and Board of Education Chairwoman Nancy Weissler could not be reached for comment before the meeting. The relocation plan is expected to be revealed tonight.

Parents have raised the point that the original building was deemed educationally unsound because of mold problems.

Construction problems have plagued the project since its inception and completion, which was originally expected in time to open the school last September, is now not expected until June, leaving parents visibly frustrated. Though the protest was not sanctioned by the school’s PTA, it was organized by PTA member Mina Bibeault. She said the effort was organized starting Sunday morning and a group of six parents made the signs....

....
“This could have all been avoided,” Ms. Bibeault said. “I don’t think we’re being told the truth and we really want the truth and the answers about what’s really happened. We have been in serious violation of fire codes since the beginning of the school year and that has not been addressed... This is being covered up by the mold issue. The mold issue definitely could have been addressed. We’ve had leaky roofs for almost a year now. We were putting band-aids on it because we thought we would be going to the new building. Shame on the Board of Education. Shame for not taking us more seriously and not taking the risk to our children more seriously.”
Ms. DiBella said she felt the board was not listening to the community. She said the community had received no information other than the school was closed and the meeting will be held tonight.

“They’re going to do what they’re going to do and to hell with what everybody else feels,” Ms. DiBella said. “There’s been no consensus. There’s been no discussion. There’s been no agreement. They haven’t even attempted to get us on board with whatever plans they have.”

A special meeting was held Sunday morning to discuss the issue. The meeting was called by Ms. Sternberg and was neither an official board meeting (because of an absence of enough board members to make a quorum) nor an official PTA meeting though Hamilton Avenue Principal Damaris Rau and Glenville Principal Marc D’Amico and PTA members from both schools attended. Press was not permitted to attend.

Greenwich police officers kept a watch on the protest to make sure pedestrian traffic wasn’t impacted. Officers were also deployed to the modulars to make sure all parents dropping off children knew the school was closed. Public Information Officer Lt. Daniel Allen said there were no incidents.

More:

Mold closes CT school for week
7Online.com, NY

(WABC)

-- A school in Connecticut was shut down because of mold. The Hamilton Avenue School will be closed all week while school officials try ...

School officials scramble to put together relocation plan

Board of Education officials said they are furiously working on a relocation plan for Hamilton Avenue School, with the goal of presenting an overview at tonight's public meeting and the details by Wednesday and Thursday. "We've got people working around the clock," district spokeswoman Kim Eves said. "There are so many details to work out in order to be able to logistically pull that off."

What next for Ham Ave.? Board of Ed tries to keep homerooms, grades together

After closing Hamilton Avenue School for the upcoming week because of mold discovered in the walls of temporary classrooms, education officials will reveal a plan tonight to discuss their plans to relocate students to other schools for the remainder of the school year.