MCPS fails to address G87 mold concerns

 Story by Gavin Tribble of the Walter Johnson Pitch newspaper reprinted in The Sentinel. Full story here.

After every class period when students rush through the hallways, ceramics teacher Kimberly Venesky wipes water off her cabinets in G87. The water coats her cabinets, running down the front, settling atop cabinet doors and pooling on the floor.

“Just people washing their hands and splashing or whatever, water is running down the stainless steel [countertop] and down towards the front,” Venesky said. “It’s sitting on top of the [cabinet] door, so when you open the door water is falling onto the floor.”

This has caused the cabinets, which are new, having to be replaced over the summer, to start deteriorating. Parts of the cabinet have begun to buckle under repeated contact with water and the door has started to split apart.

These cabinets have had issues long before they were replaced, having leaked for several years until, finally on March 13, 2024, a Work Order Request was filed to replace the counters. A day later, plumbers reported suspected mold, requesting an Indoor Air Quality investigation in a second work Order Request.

The Indoor Air Quality investigation was completed on March 18, 2024, finding a decayed root structure on a piece of rubble in the cabinet. It is also unclear if mold was properly checked for, as the cabinets were not removed, so the wall behind was not assessed, where Venesky argues the mold was located.

While the Indoor Air Quality investigation was complete, the cabinets were not replaced.

Eventually on June 18, over a year after the request was first filed, new cabinets were installed. However, it was unclear what happened when they put the new counters in.

“I don’t know how they addressed the mold, whether or not they just put the cabinets on top of it, wiped it down, whether it’s actually up to code, and that’s my concern right now, that it’s just going to come back,” Venesky said.