Upper Perkiomen Parents and Students Question Mold Clean-up at Upper Perk High School

Photos by Evan Brandt

A duct-cleaning truck is parked outside Upper Perkiomen High School Thursday.

About 35 people turned out Thursday to hear what cleaners, testers and the school board had to say about the mold infestation which has closed Upper Perkiomen High School for the past week.

The decision to close the school was made Saturday by Superintendent Alexis McGloin after a previous clean-up failed to prevent the mod from returning.

Classes are expected to begin again Monday, but work to remove the mold will continue for weeks

Harry M. Neill, V.P of 1Source Safety and Health Inc., left, and
Raymond Felix of Belfor Property Restoration, address the
Upper Perkiomen School Board Thursday night.

after classes are completed each day.

Raymond Felix, who works for Belfor Property Restoration, the national firm hired by the school district to clean the mold for the second time, said Upper Perk's situation is not unusual.

"This is the seventh school I have been in this month," he said. The problem is the school is 52 years old and its systems were built to deal with dryer summers.

"We used to get a heat wave that lasted a week. Now they last for a month. Summers are just hotter and wetter than they used to be," Felix said.

Although the HVAC filters are changed regularly, some of the cooler coils can be hard to get to, and, as a result, trap warm air instead of allowing cooler air to circulate. When his workers got to the coils, "it was like a carpet back there," he said.

Here is video of Felix giving an update:

Student Raevona Fisher and a friend tell the school board
about a photo seen in early August showing mold in the band room.

Parent Alisa Capreri told the board her son has asthma and was affected by the mold when he returned to school after the summer. She is worried he will be adversely affected again when he returns Monday.

And student Raevona Fisher told the board that a photo showing mold growing on the ceiling in the
band room was making the rounds among students in early August, but no one was notified.

Parent Mary Cannon from Hereford Township wanted to know why the district had not notified parents of the first mold infestation.

McGloin said it was believed to have been handled before any students returned to school, so notification was not thought to be necessary.

A crowd of about 35 at Thursday's Upper Perkiomen School Board.

Felix said so far, the first floor of the high school has been cleaned and tested by a second firm, 1Source Safety and Health Inc., which found no evidence of mold. Dehumidifiers are currently running in all the classrooms to make it more difficult for the mold to grow.

No price-tag on the clean-up was offered Thursday night and McGloin said the district will first try to get an insurance company to cover it. However, they often won't cover mold, she said. If so, the district has enough in its reserves to cover the cost, she said.

And with that, here are the Tweets from the meeting:

This Mold is Getting Old

Upper Perk Reverses Vote to Kill New Middle School

Photos by Evan Brandt

A standing-room only crowd applauds the Tuesday night reversal of the Dec. 4 vote to halt the construction of the new Upper Perkiomen Middle School on Montgomery Avenue.

What's done can always be undone -- at least in the Upper Perkiomen School District.

In the wake of the startling Dec. 4 decision by the newly elected school board to halt the middle school construction project, which was already underway, one board member changed his mind and brought the project back to life.

It was new board member James Glackin who provided the key vote. Elected

School Board member James Glackin, in blue, had 

at lot of people who wanted to talk to him after his vote.

with the slate of candidates pledging to stop the middle school project, Glackin reversed his Dec. 4 to kill the project and provided the crucial fifth vote to revive it.

Prior to his vote, he told the standing-room only crowd that the "we all have a cut-off point about when too much has been spent to stop" and that it is "different for everyone.

Evidently, the $7.8 million spent through November was past that point.

He also provided the fifth vote needed to halt the following motion fielded by School Board President Kerry Drake, an opponent of the project, to delay the project for 120 days.

The crowd was standing room only.

The votes came toward the end of a marathon meeting lasting more than three hours and called with just a few items on the agenda aimed at following up on the Dec. 4 vote and looking at what comes next.

But a motion by Vice President Mike Elliott, seconded by Joan Smith, to go ahead with the project put the primary issue in the district back on the table.

The first attempt to stop the vote was a motion to amend Elliott's motion to have the opposite result -- send termination letters to all the project contractors -- made by board member Raeann Hofkin.

That failed by a 5-4 vote which brought Elliott's motion back to the table.

Parent Hope Manion told the board, who announced her

candidacy for the board last night, warned the board that

"this is what it will be like from now on" if the middle 

school project did not move forward.

Solicitor Kenneth Roos explained that what Elliott's motion really needed to be was to rescind the Dec. 4 vote to terminate the project, a change to which he readily agreed.

Many of those who spoke against, and for, the Dec. 4 vote were present last night and reiterated their arguments and their positions.

Those opposed to the project pointed out that the voters had clearly chosen the slate of anti-project candidates -- by a margin of 18 percent.

Those favoring the project pointed to low voter turn-out and said many eligible voters had not gone to the polls because they believed the matter to be settled.

Others noted that at the Dec. 4 meeting, many supporting the middle school project had pleaded with the new board to simply suspend the project, not terminate it.

Now that the vote was reversed, their calls for compromise and reconciliation were suddenly silent.

And, as always, there was dispute about numbers -- what the real cost of going forward will be, as well as the real cost of halting the project.

Neither were completely clear last night.

That said, here are the Tweets from a very long night:

New Board Kills Upper Perk Middle School Project

Photo by Evan Brandt

Supporters of building a new middle school in the Upper Perkiomen School District hold up signs in support of their position during the Monday meeting of the school board when the newly elected majority provided the votes needed to kill the project.

In a stunning development that will mean Upper Perkiomen School District taxpayers spent $8 million for a hole in the ground, the newly elected majority of the school board Monday night voted 5-4 to kill the project on which construction has already begun.

It took place at a marathon four-hour meeting, moved to the high school auditorium due to the expected crowd, which showed up in force -- on both sides of the issue.

Newly sworn in board members Melanie Cunningham, Stephen Cunningham, James Glackin and newly elected School Board President Kerry Drake, joined board member Raeann Hofkin in providing the five votes.

Before the voting took place, however, 24 speakers had their say and by the end of the night, 31 had spoken, some more than once. A total of four of them spoke in favor of the board's course of action.

The actual cost of the decision remains unknown. When board member John Farris asked for what it would cost to stop construction, Superintendent Alexis McGloin said "I don't know the answer to that question."

Board member Melanie Cunningham, who at the end of the night said many of the supporters of the middle school project were making assumptions about what the new majority intended, said every day construction continues, the number changes.

A motion by Farris to delay the vote was defeated, and pleas by board members Judith Maginnis and Mike W. Elliott failed to change the minds of the board. majority.

Some speakers said those opposed to the middle school project had made similar pleas for delays before voting to start construction, both before and after the election, and had been similarly ignored.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting. Look for more coverage in upcoming editions of The Mercury.