Public schools aren’t always a safe place. In Ohio, some communities don’t have the means to build new buildings when needed, or even maintain the ones they have properly. Please understand – I never had toadstools growing in my room like the school in Detroit that has been in the news lately, but the room at School #1 definitely wasn’t my definition of clean and least restrictive as a learning environment.
First of all, it was in a dungeon, with all of the floor surfaces being underground and most of the ceiling under bleachers. There was blown insulation on the bleacher side of the ceiling and by the way the room was constructed, it was obvious that a drop ceiling had been intended to complete the room. It had never been put up, so every time anyone ascended the bleachers, little bits of 50 year-old insulation floated down onto my floor, my piano, my kids and me. The school swore it wasn’t asbestos (which I hope wasn’t a lie… but I don’t have much confidence in ANYthing ANYone in that organization’s leadership told me, so here’s hoping…); regardless, it probably wasn’t safe to breathe and the dungeon’s vacuum was locked in a closet only the janitors had a key to. I would have swept – I would have had the kids help me sweep – the kids asked to sweep, some times – but no one was available to come and unlock the door.
Mold. The Church Lady warned me about the mold; the kids told me about the mold; the administration said that everyone was lying about the mold. There must have been mold in that room. Children and adults alike reacted within 15 minutes of coming into the room. Itchy eyes, ears and/or nose, runny nose… When they left, within 30 minutes the symptoms resolved themselves. Sounds environmental, right? The Church Lady had had so many problems with such symptoms that she had gone to get allergy tested. The results said that she was only allergic to mold. She took these findings to the school; the school said they would look into it. Neither of us know what ‘looking into it’ entailed, but I bet you know what their findings were: No mold.
The Church Lady ended up on oral and nasal spray versions of allergy meds and still had problems. During the 4 years I taught there, I tried all of the above, but never really got much relief. Most of the allergy meds gave me a sore throat and it’s impossible to teach, let alone teach SINGING, with a sore throat, especially when you’re trying to be heard over a band, over an assembly in the gym upstairs, over 80+ students…
Where could the mold be, the administration wanted to know? I had two guesses – whatever soft and breaking down material was on my ceiling (of course no one would confirm or deny this, because no one knew what it was, so no one knew if mold could live or grow on it) and most likely, the carpet.
The carpet. *shudder* The carpet in that room was an atrocity. It had been a only few years old, but looked like it had been transplanted out of a 30 year-used frat house. Actually, I’ve been in frat houses with nicer carpet… The same carpet had been used to re-carpet the band room. Bands are hard on carpet – they are in and out during all sorts of weather during marching band, there’s always the spit valve thing, valve oil, slide grease, you name it, it all ends up on the floor. The band room carpet was 2-3 shades lighter than the choir room carpet; that’s how nasty the choir room carpet was.
I was told during my initial tour of the room that the flooring would be replaced before school started, so I didn’t comment on how nasty it was. They only ripped up the bottom level of the tiered floor and replaced it with tile. That was the smallest section of carpet in the room, but apparently, it was the worst.
The Church Lady had allowed all manner of food and drink in the room at different times, and the evidence of that was all over the floor. There was one particularly nasty spot, about 3 feet across, that some the kids avoided. When I asked them why, they told me that’s where Puppy had puked. (squint, inquiring head turn) The Church Lady had adopted a puppy and felt bad leaving it home all day alone, so when they had evening show choir practice, she would bring the puppy, which led to lots of puppy love, but not so much show choir-ing, apparently. During one such evening practice, there was food, the puppy got into said food, ate it all in about 25 seconds like puppies do, and then promptly puked it back up all over the carpet. The puppy tried to ‘police its brass’, like all dogs do, and what it didn’t get up, The Church Lady dabbed up with paper towels. This carpet was never cleaned after this, except the paper towel dabbing, because in order to get the janitors to come and clean it, she would have to admit that she had a dog in the building. They were all supposed to keep that a secret (It was nasty enough to make sense… *shudder*).
Also contributing to the mold concern was my weepy window and corner. One day, during one of the first hard rains of the fall, one of my kids randomly said, ‘Miss Reed, your window is crying.’ And sure enough, a steady stream of rainwater was seeping down the wall, pooling in the carpet (Well, that explained the discoloration on the paint right there…). Later that day, I realized that the back corner wall was wet, too (which explained why the corner filing cabinet was rusty and why the carpet underneath was almost black with staining and rust… and probably mold). When I reported the leak, I was told that this was an old building.
No shit. It was an old building. That wasn’t hard to see. But that’s no excuse for ignoring a water leak. Apparently, some teachers had to ignore water leaks. Others got them fixed right away. It doesn’t take much guessing which category I fell into.
I asked if there was a way to repair the water leak, as it wasn’t safe for my students. Several of them complained of allergy problems and that wasn’t a good recruiting strategy, and it wasn’t safe for me to be spending all day down there either. I was dismissed as a diva, just like The Church Lady before me, and told that there wasn’t any mold in that room.
The situation in the room did get a little better over time, no thanks whatsoever to the school or their staff. I had strict rules about food and drink, and when we did have food or drink, we kept it on the tile and we cleaned up everything ourselves afterwards, including emptying the trash cans and taking the bags to the dumpsters right then.
I went on a huge purging mission, during my planning times, after school, during double-blocks due to weird scheduling situations, you name it. Any paper that had been water damaged went in the trash. Between the mold and the various bugs down there, one of which fed on paper, I got rid of it. No kid wanted to hold, read and breathe nasty water damaged paper and that music was brittle and fragile from the damage anyway. Most of it was out of print, so a full set couldn’t be legally purchased… and most of it wasn’t worth purchasing anyway.
With less music to store, fewer filing cabinets were needed. Once they were empty, the nasty, corroded ones went to the dumpster, along with the ones that had drawers with no stops and tended to fly out onto people’s feet (those my male students had to take to the dumpster themselves, after the janitors told me there was nothing wrong with them… after a student had a drawer drop on her foot. Admin’s solution? Only the teacher should be touching the filing cabinets. What about MY feet?). I rearranged the remaining cabinets away from the water leaks, away from electrical outlets and out of the way as much as possible. Which I was criticized for, because they took up more space this way.
I proposed a plan to use my budget funds for safer, more space efficient storage using the Wenger system… and the school shot me down. Filing cabinets could be purchased with those funds, but not the Wenger cabinets – those were ‘permanent improvements’ because they needed to be anchored to the wall. They were safer, but who’s worried about that?!
Every time it rained inside my classroom, I threw a huge pile of paper towels down in the corners where the walls leaked. I regularly threw the wet out and put new paper towels down. The janitors complained about my needing so many paper towels – what were my students doing that they were so messy? I thanked them for the paper towels and told them that we were trying to keep the room cleaner so their job would be easier, then went on teaching.*
There’s probably a mold problem in that room. Hopefully that nasty carpet has been replaced… But we all know the problem was all in my head.
I have had problems with mold ever since School #1. Everyone in a position to address the situation says it’s all in my head. I want to smack all of them.
*I have to say – we had one great janitor and one lazy janitor. I was encouraged to clean by the good one; he regularly thanked me for keeping the kids tidier in the room. The lazy one just seemed to always been the one around when the wall was leaking or a condom had to be thrown away. I was truly sad when the good janitor retired… my room was never cleaned as well again after that.
Donita Westman 