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