Mold outbreak causes school woes

The Sentinel

Published on: Thursday, October 31, 2013
By Holden Wilen
ROCKVILLE – Montgomery County Public Schools is reeling after a meeting last week with the County Council’s education committee to discuss a mold outbreak at Rolling Terrace Elementary School.
Councilwoman Valerie Ervin, chair of the education committee, called for the meeting after visiting the Takoma Park school to see the mold for herself.
“I did a walkthrough of the school with Principal (Jennifer) Connors,” Ervin said. “We saw the undersides of chairs with mold, pipes with mold, rugs with mold, heating and air conditioning vents with mold. It is a significant problem and there are a lot of children in that building, 800 students.”
Bridgette Kaiser, a mother of two Rolling Terrace students, said the mold is affecting the health of her fourth-grade son.

When Kaiser’s son went to school at the beginning of the fall, she said his allergies and asthma began acting up. Kaiser said she is normally able to keep her son’s health condition under control, but this time he ended up having to go to urgent care. At one point Kaiser said her son was on seven different medications...

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“The other fact is that this again is in direct correlation with the weather conditions that we are having,” Song said. “Usually mold is factored into the outside weather conditions that we have. Usually when the weather turns at this time into the cooling season that we are going into, the mold dissipates because there is less humidity. It is a direct dependent on that.”
County Councilman Marc Elrich did not buy Song’s excuse, asking him why mold outbreaks did not occur at other schools. “When it rained for three days it rained for three days on the whole county near as I can tell,” Elrich said.