Maya McFadden file photo
Vent trouble at Cross, the day before the start of school.
Wilbur Cross’s library will be closed for at least a week as the city’s public school district gets rid of air-borne mold spores — as part of its response to unkempt building conditions at the city’s largest high school at the start of the school year.
That’s the latest with the state of repair and disrepair at the 181 Mitchell Dr. high school, which is the largest in the city with roughly 1,840 enrolled students for the academic year that started last Thursday.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) officials have worked to address building decay concerns — like damaged ceiling tiles, broken flooring, and mildew-coated air vents — raised by school staff over the last week, and spotlighted by this Independent article.
The school’s library is now high up on that list of parts of the school in need of, and receiving, urgent cleanup. All of this comes as schools across the district are struggling with mounting decay.
During a building walkthrough at Wilbur Cross this past Friday, Board of Education Operations Consultant Michael Carter and Wilbur Cross Principal Matt Brown identified several actions related to the building’s conditions.
That’s when they discovered mold spores in the air of the building’s library / media center. Schools spokesperson Justin Harmon said spores have not been found in any classrooms, but two adjacent classrooms that are accessible only through the library “will be unavailable until the library is clean.”
“HEPA vacuums will be used to clean the surfaces and HEPA filters to clear the air,” Harmon explained about the library. “The work will take a couple days once it is contracted, so we estimate the library will be closed for a week to 10 days.”
In a Tuesday email, Harmon informed the Independent that additional work in other parts of Cross’s building is already underway.
“Carpenters worked over the weekend to replace ruined floor tiles and ceiling tiles,” he said. “We are engaging an architect for a design recommendation to address the groundwater issues that have caused flooding” in a ground-floor classroom. “We also will install insulation to protect from condensation on ceiling ducts, which caused the ceiling tiles to mildew.”
Harmon said the district plans to replace the tile in the library, replace stairwell tread covers, paint handrails, replace and repair faucets in restrooms, and fix doors.
“Going forward, we will be more proactive about scheduling engineering inspections of buildings in order to identify and address conditions such as these. We also will develop a comprehensive ten-year facilities plan that provides for systematic maintenance of key building systems,” Harmon concluded. “We regret the inconvenience these current building conditions have caused to the Wilbur Cross community, as well as the health and safety concerns they have occasioned.”
Also on Tuesday, during a Board of Education Finance and Operations committee meeting, Carter and ABM contracted Executive Director of Facilities Jamar Alleyne told school board members that Cross’s damaged stairwell treads would cost at least $100,000 to replace.
Alleyne said that NHPS has three in-house carpenters for jobs like repairing doors, locks, floor tiles, and walls.
One of those carpenters is currently out on disability leave, he added. “We don’t have the bandwidth or capacity to be more proactive,” Alleyne said. “It’s impossible for us to keep up at this pace with the resources that we have.”
The pair said that having two carpenters to service the entire district makes getting to all repairs “impossible.” Alleyne said that there’s enough work to be done at Cross alone for more than two carpenters for the full year.
School board member OrLando Yarborough suggested that the district come up with short-term and long-term plans to address district-wide building decay needs.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Cross Principal Matt Brown sent the following email to the school’s staff, informing them of the latest with building upkeep. That email reads:
“Good Afternoon Staff,
As you know, we have had several facilities challenges here at Cross at the start of the school year. Beginning tomorrow, our library will be closed for approximately 7 to 10 days to allow cleanup of mold spores detected in the air. The closing will affect access to the library, the two classrooms and two offices in the library suite as well as the multi faith flex space all of which will be unavailable until the remediation is complete.
Reports of mold in the library and other school areas led to testing by the district. The testing in the library revealed spores of the genus aspergillus, which can exacerbate breathing conditions such as asthma. The cleanup will entail vacuuming all surfaces in the library with a HEPA vacuum and using HEPA filters to scrub spores from the air. The work is expected to take two or three days once it is contracted. The library and classrooms will reopen once the cleanup is complete and re-testing indicates the space is safe for use.
As an added step, the district plans to replace the carpeting in the library with vinyl planking, which will necessitate closing the library for about a week. We will notify the school community once that work has been scheduled.
In a time of tight room availability here at Cross, this will cause us even more of a real estate challenge. We ask that all take great care in welcoming our displaced staff and students into your classroom spaces as we navigate this situation.”
At the end of the email Brown shared the expected classroom changes to come as a result of the library closure.
Some repair work has already been completed. Water-damaged tiles in Kim Anderson's English classroom, as viewed on Aug. 28 ...
... have now been touched up, along with replaced ceiling tiles.
Cross library chair on Aug. 28.