Mold cleanup begins

On Monday Feb. 23, workers began the cleanup process in the mold-damaged classrooms on the bottom floor of the science wing and CTE building.

According to Elizabeth McManus, the district’s deputy superintendent of business services, “[The insurance company] uses a firm by the name of Belfor. They’ve figured out that [the mold] is not as severe as they once thought it was, but it still means that they have to wipe everything down and remove the cabinets and replace some of the cabinet pieces.”

Assistant Principal Joe Mahood adds, “They are going to remove all of the wallboard, the sheetrock and look at the walls, see where the mold is. Where they see mold, they’re going to clean it, or if it’s damaged, they will remove it.”

Back in December, a detailed investigation was conducted because of flooding in the area, and, concerned by the discovery of mold, the administration took measures to prevent further flooding such as the reconfiguring of the student parking lot and affected classrooms in the lower science wing.

Students and staff hope to be back in the classrooms by the end of the semester. However, there is no guarantee; McManus explains that there is still investigation yet to be completed, and in this kind of situation, anything is possible.

Mahood says, “With any construction project, you always anticipate that there will be roadblocks. You hope that you can get past quickly. Right now, they’re moving along very rapidly, and they seem to not be finding any surprises.”

The project is expensive, as McManus notes that it may be anywhere from $200,000 to $700,000. She explains, “You not only have the clean up people, but you also have an environmental hygienist there. The insurance company has also hired a construction management firm. So there [are] a lot of specialists involved. [Fortunately,] we have a loss of only about $25,000, and then our insurance carrier is stepping in to pick up the difference.”

The Aragon community has taken steps to adapt to this issue. Physics teacher Steve Ratto says, “I feel bad for the kids who are trying to find me. I’m trying to do so many other things, grab supplies, move those [supplies], and it just takes time to do that. I feel bad for having to ask other teachers to move out of an area that they typically use. But there are much worse situations than this, and if it happens to take the semester, then it takes the semester.”

Because there have been similar problems with flooding in the past, it has been a long process to try and find a permanent solution for this problem. Ratto says, “For what [supplies] we’ve been able to request they’ve been able to grab from the classrooms, but we’ve had to request them ahead of time. It’s a little frustrating because some of those things that I use for demonstrations are really cool, but I’ve found videos and things like that.”

McManus confirms that a long-term solution is in the works, saying, “The majority of the problem has been because of the problem in the drainage from the Baywood property. As soon as graduation is over, we’re going to put more capture basins in on our side, but we’re also going to put them in the street so that they’re strategically located so that they’ll absorb the water.”

Mahood says, “It’s the inspector that will be telling us that we’re ready to go. He’s like the game official who says that you can play. He’s the one that controls the scenario. And he has a very extensive protocol on what needs to be done.”

McManus describes the cleanup company’s normal procedure, saying, “They’ll test [the air] right after there’s the flood, and then they’ll come back a week later and see if any [mold] is growing, and then they’ll come back the next week and see, and as they clean, they’ll continue to take the tests until there’s absolutely nothing showing on the results.”

The students and staff have tried to work with the situation. McManus says, “[The staff’s] ability to deal with this magnitude of a flood has just shown how professional they are, and the students have been very flexible too because it’s impacted their schedules dramatically. I think everybody is really looking forward to this being over.”