PTA: Letters & E-mails to Starr, Staff & BOE have gone completely unanswered

Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of
Rolling Terrace Elementary School
October 18, 2013

Valerie Ervin, Chair
Phil Andrews
Craig Rice
Education Committee
Montgomery County Council

Dear Members Ervin, Andrews, and Rice:

As you are aware, Rolling Terrace Elementary School has been battling a severe mold problem since before the start of this school year. The PTA, parents, teachers and staff continue to be extremely concerned about this issue. We greatly appreciate that Councilwoman Ervin was able to visit the school on Wednesday, October 16, 2013 to see the problem firsthand and to discuss all these issues with concerned parents. However, we considered it prudent to document our concerns so that all of Montgomery County leaders would be fully aware of the issues. This letter outlines our concerns and will present several recommendations for action.

The health of children and staff is being compromised.

Many parents are reporting an array of symptoms that are unusual for their children and can be linked to mold exposure. These range from severe, debilitating asthma attacks (requiring emergency room visits) to headaches, hives, itchy and red eyes, and scratchy throats and coughs. We know that some of these have been reported to the school's nurse, however many families are simply taking their children to their personal physicians. There have been numerous requests by the PTA to conduct a survey of all families to better understand the extent of impacts, but no action has been taken. Many parents believe that the chemicals being used to clean moldy surfaces may be causing additional health problems.

As we all know, when a child's health is compromised, so is his or her learning ability. When an entire classroom is too hot, has strange odors, or workers coming and going because of the mold issue, the quality of the teaching and learning environment is completely compromised. Our children, teachers, and school administration deserve better than this.

The PTA considers it important to better understand the extent of the impacts to help Montgomery County and the School Department improve their remediation plans to both help Rolling Terrace now and potentially other schools in the future. The lack of data and information will only continue to compromise resolving the problem.

Recommendations:

• Request that parents notify the school nurse of illnesses that could be related to mold. This would provide more information regarding total health impacts.
• Work with an epidemiologist to develop a survey design and implement a statistically valid survey to better understand mold impacts on the school population (children and all staff). 

Consistent and complete communications from MCPS is lacking and is not reaching all families with children at the school.

To not mince words, it has been a struggle for parents and the PTA to get answers to our questions and concerns. As one parent noted, "it's like pulling teeth." There have been improvements the past couple of weeks-some parents with children exhibiting severe allergic reactions are being informed of new mold findings, as is the PTA President and Task Force Chair - but not the entire school community. Despite the school's large community of families with limited English proficiency, not all notices have been translated.  Many parents were not fully informed or aware of the issue after the first notice was sent home with students because it completely down played the severity, extent, and potential health risks of the problem. Some information has been inconsistent, for instance, when exactly mold was first discovered. Some parents didn't even receive the notice - message
by 'student backpack' is not sufficient, especially in the case of younger students. Since then, there was only one additional notice to all parents. This second notice made parents aware of the symptoms they may see if their children are sensitive to mold, but encouraged parents to go to their own doctor, not notify the school or school nurse.

Furthermore, only parents who have reported symptoms have been receiving ongoing communication, as noted above. What appears to be a lack of outreach by the Administration could be misconstrued as an environmental justice issue. Being more proactive will improve trust and confidence that MCPS is working to eliminate the mold problem.

Finally, some letters and emails sent to Superintendent Starr, other staff, School Board members, and the Council have gone completely unanswered. A lack of response makes it appear that the leadership doesn't care or worse, is hiding something. 

Recommendations

• Develop a standardized approach to notify all parents of the students in an affected classroom, not just those with known allergens, of new mold spots and the cleaners used. Have documents prepared in advance in English and Spanish (or any other language necessary) so that only the room number/teacher name has to be added.
• Proactively provide a weekly update that is posted to the front page of the school website and posted in a prominent location near the front door of the school. Any description of rooms with mold should identify the room by teacher name and grade, in addition to room number, so that parents can better understand where the mold has been found.
• Use robo-calls more frequently to provide information/notices to the school community.
• Continue sharing print information in the Wednesday folders.
• School Administrators and/or senior staff working on the mold issue should offer to hold meetings with the school community at least once a month to improve and maintain better dialog and to work together on resolving problems. 

The root cause has not been adequately identified; mold continues to reoccur and be found in new locations. 

Although Mr. James Song, director, Department of Facilities Management, sounded extremely confident the mold was contained and being effectively remediated (cleaned) when he spoke at the school meeting on September 16, that is obviously not the case. Mr. Song noted that after the cleaning mold might come back in the spring, however it is persisting without abatement. Mold continues to be regularly found and cleaned away from walls, furniture, and ceiling tiles. But this is only a symptom of a deeper problem. It is obvious to parents the mold is widespread and pervasive due to the poor condition of the school's heating and cooling system (discussed below). The source or sources have not been properly found and contained. Mold is likely persisting behind the ceiling tiles, along
pipes, in the insulation or in other hidden spaces.

An indoor air quality survey was conducted by an external third party on September 18, and though the results look relatively good, it is only providing a snapshot of the problem at one point in time. It did note that one classroom in particular had nearly three times the level of Cladosporium spores as compared to outdoor concentration. This room may prove to be a 'hotspot' or source. However, the test was done nearly one month ago. It seems more prudent to routinely test the indoor air quality to both focus in on the sources and vectors, and better understand the actual air quality conditions in real time since it could have serious
impacts on our children and staff.

Recommendation 

• A more complete and larger scale inspection and abatement of the persistent mold needs to be conducted. Consideration should be given to potentially moving students to a separate site or to closing the school for a couple of days (possibly near a holiday or school break), if this is needed.
• If the school is closed for a period of time, MCPS and the County Administration should consider how best to provide support to families that may not have alternative care options for their children, particularly if they cannot miss work.
• Conduct indoor air quality testing more frequently throughout the school, possibly as frequently as two or three times per week. 

The schedule of the HVAC Renovation Action Plan for Rolling Terrace is completely insufficient considering the emergency situation that exists. 

An 'HVAC Renovation Work - Action Plan' was shared with the Rolling Terrace Community after the September 18 meeting and is now posted on the RTES website. Unfortunately, the schedule for replacing some components is far into the future --- as far as FY 2016 or FY2017. To parents, the PTA, and wider school community, this is unacceptable. The current failures of the heating and cooling system, and problems that have persisted for many years, is exacerbating the mold problem.

Rather than spending precious dollars for continuous, ongoing cleanups that are proving ineffective, it seems time and funds would be better spent to shorten the timeline of this Action Plan and to get as much done as feasibly possible within the next six months to one year.

Recommendation 

• Reassess the emergency nature of the persistent mold problem at Rolling Terrace and elevate the full replacement of all components to the top of the County and MCPS priority list. 

In closing, the PTA and Rolling Terrace school community appreciate your prompt attention to the issues we have raised. We have strived to make positive recommendations, but you or others may have additional suggestions. The PTA Mold Task Force and PTA leadership at Rolling Terrace Elementary School are available to work with your Committee and other County or MCPS officials to resolve the mold and HVAC system problems at Rolling Terrace as quickly as possible.

Respectfully,

Craig Sharman, Chair      Mindy Kassaraba, President 
PTA Task Force              Rolling Terrace Elementary School PTA
On behalf of the Rolling Terrace Elementary School PTA and school community

Cc:
Jennifer Connors, Principal
Joshua Starr, Superintendent
Bronda Mills, Associate Superintendent
Montgomery County School Board