Newspaper Articles

Published on October 2, 2004, Stuart News, The (FL)

Cleaning crews prepare schools for classes planned on Monday HURRICANE JEANNE SPECIAL EDITION

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY -- Cleaning crews armed with buckets and mops went back to district schools this week to clear the way for students to return to school.
District officials expect to resume classes Monday, contingent on whether all schools have power. About half of the schools have power. A news conference has been scheduled for 1 p.m. today to discuss opening schools.
Schools used as shelters are being sanitized by a professional cleaning service,
Published on November 5, 2004, Stuart News, The (FL)

Parents question schools air quality

Three years ago, after impromptu curbside meetings at dismissal time, parents Nancy Rogers and Lori Denig learned their children were suffering from similar symptoms: coughing, bloody noses and nasal drip.
The pair formed the St. Lucie County Indoor Air Quality Task Force to address school conditions they thought were making children sick
Published on November 7, 2004, Fort Pierce Tribune (FL)

Mold tests in schools sought

Parents and staff want school officials to track health issues to see if unseen mold is causing the headaches and breathing difficulties children experience during school hours.
ST. LUCIE COUNTY-- In the five weeks since school reopened, teacher Tina Hill has suffered from sore throats, sinus infections and headaches. Three times she has visited the doctor, who prescribed steroids to combat symptoms
Published on November 10, 2004, Fort Pierce Tribune (FL)

School District seeks to determine if mold, illnesses are linked

Teachers and parents with complaints about air quality in St. Lucie County schools must receive a written response within 48 hours, and the county Health Department with the school district will begin tracking absences and illnesses next week looking for connections to mold. "There is a level of legitimacy to the complaints," said Vanessa Tillman, teachers union president. "The district has to have some compassion to recognize people are having problems
Published on November 23, 2004, Stuart News, The (FL)

Schools complain of dust, mold

Air-quality issues, which now include cement dust as well as mold, continue to cause headaches for St. Lucie County school officials. Although school nursing aides are aware of possible mold- and dust-related illnesses, the St. Lucie County Health Department has yet to discuss the situation with school officials, said Jim Moses, county environmental health director. A flu vaccine shortage and post-hurricane community health issues delayed a meeting about indoor air quality
Published on December 4, 2004, Fort Pierce Tribune (FL)

Contamination can be serious

My name is Carol Cherry and I live in New Jersey. I have been researching a move to Florida, in particular Port St. Lucie when I came across this story. Seems I cannot move there now because of the mold in schools. You see, I lost my newly purchased home in New Jersey to mold contamination. I can tell you that the symptoms being displayed are on target for mold contamination. My youngest child was only 7 when we moved into our contaminated house and his white cell count dropped
Published on December 9, 2004, Stuart News, The (FL)

Parents call for school air tests

The St. Lucie County School Board is rethinking testing for mold in hurricane-damaged schools after a barrage of complaints.
PORT ST. LUCIE -- St. Lucie County school officials are rethinking mold testing in hurricanedamaged schools after hearing a barrage of complaints Wednesday from parents and teachers about health problems.
But with no scientific standards in place for mold testing, Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon wants a state-level task force set up to help
Published on December 10, 2004, Fort Pierce Tribune (FL)

St. Lucie schools hire PR firm

St. Lucie County schools will pay a public relations firm at least $6,000 during the next three months to help manage negative publicity and mounting public concerns over possible air-quality hazards in some schools.
Sam Yates, who owns Yates & Associates in Jensen Beach, already has had an impact, helping Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon develop the idea for a Blue Ribbon committee of community leaders, businesses and parents to promote government standards for indoor airquality
Published on December 15, 2004, Stuart News, The (FL)

System to track school illnesses

The new reporting protocol will include students who go to the nurse complaining about the school air quality. ST. LUCIE COUNTY -- More than a month after the St. Lucie County school district formally began taking air-quality complaints, the health department has designed a protocol to track student and teacher illnesses, Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon told the School Board on Tuesday
Published on December 18, 2004, Stuart News, The (FL)

Teacher testing classroom for mold did nothing wrong

Reference the Nov. 30 article, "Expert urges testing schools' air," I'm a little confused about the part where the teacher who tested her classroom for mold is the one who is under investigation. It appears to me that she was trying to keep herself and her students healthy by finding out the truth. The administration wants us to believe that she did something wrong here
Published on December 24, 2004, Stuart News, The (FL)

Schools tackle mold

ST. LUCIE COUNTY -- An abbreviated holiday break next week will give school workers their longest stretch of time yet to tackle air-quality and hurricane-recovery projects. Facilities Director Marty Sanders released a list of schools the district's hygiene contractor and in-house maintenance staff will work on next week. Schools targeted by Evans Environmental & Geosciences include those that need the most "invasive" work
Published on January 7, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

St. Lucie school board says they will skip meeting

School district officials will skip a meeting next week called by a group of parents seeking answers about mold and air quality in St. Lucie County schools. Instead, district officials are creating a progress report and unveiling a "stepped up communications plan" next week for the community, said Sam Yates, a private public relations consultant hired by the school district. "The district is going to concentrate more on putting their message to the masses," Yates said.
Published on January 12, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

Schools address air-quality efforts

ST. LUCIE COUNTY -- With the number of indoor air-quality complaints in St. Lucie County schools nearing 100, all 35,000 children in the system can expect a letter home this week outlining the district's recovery efforts. Two months after the school district began a new procedure to track complaints, the Health Department now is gathering data and will formally address the School Board next month
Published on January 13, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

Parents feel mold concerns being ignored

Gas masks and personal stories might be the next tactic concerned parents use to tell school officials they aren't responding to concerns about hurricane-related mold in schools. Of three meetings conducted since schools reopened, the smallest group yet of parents aired concerns Wednesday night about mold in St. Lucie County schools, but their stories sounded similar: unsure of where to go for help, children still are coming home from school sick
Published on January 27, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

10 Schools to receive recovery effort

St. Lucie County school officials identified on Wednesday 10 schools where posthurricane efforts will be concentrated, a sign they say shifts the cleanup purpose from disaster recovery to a more methodical approach addressing health complaints. Meanwhile, a committee created by Schools Superintendent Michael Lannon in early December to address air quality issues related to mold is getting off the ground
Published on February 10, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

Health officials say school data doesn't apply to mold problem

St. Lucie County parents will have to wait for more current health studies of the school district's campuses before they can gauge whether the district has a mold problem, health officials said. Two studies presented by the county health department to school district officials are poor measures of health conditions on campus because they rely on data gathered before and after September's hurricanes, county epidemiologist Edgardo Morales said
Published on March 9, 2005, Fort Pierce Tribune (FL)

Flu may be to blame for sick kids; not mold

FORT PIERCE -- A spike in St. Lucie County absentee rates and children's over-thecounter prescription sales during a six-week stretch might show more about a tough flu season than the post- hurricane health of schools. For its second time, the St. Lucie County Health Department delivered to the School Board on Tuesday data from three existing studies originally designed to track outbreaks of illness and bio-terrorism events.
Published on May 18, 2005, Fort Pierce Tribune (FL)

Parents angered over mystery school illness

PORT ST. LUCIE -- Teachers and parents at Mariposa Elementary School have little to agree about with school administrators these days, except one thing: Eight months after the hurricanes, and despite hundreds of complaints about illnesses blamed on continuing mold problems on school campuses, wha tever is sickening students and staff is still a mystery.
On Tuesday, in response to a surge of complaints from Mariposa -- where two teachers recently left the campus in ambulances
Published on May 19, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

No mold found in initial Mariposa air tests

PORT ST. LUCIE -- Initial air samples taken from Mariposa Elementary School show nothing to account for a surge of illnesses among teachers and students, but more samples will be tested this week, a private consultant said Wednesday.
Those results should provide more definitive information to officials seeking the cause of mysterious illnesses affecting some children and teachers, said consultant Eric Althouse. "I have many more things to test and that I want to evaluate,"
Published on May 22, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

Slow cleanup elicits worry

Itchy skin at Garden City Elementary. Mold on vents at Southport Middle. Odors in rooms at Dan McCarty Middle.
Those are just some of the parent and staff complaints from schools all over St. Lucie County, submitted in writing to facilities staff in just the last four weeks.
Since tracking began in mid-November, 232 complaints and concerns have been addressed to facilities staff and passed on to the district's private clean-up company, Evans Environmental & And finally this is what they say Margot read your own newspaper
Published on May 21, 2005, Stuart News, The (FL)

Tests found mold in school ducts after all

Days after saying initial air tests from Mariposa Elementary School showed no mold, a more thorough laboratory analysis of the school's ventilation system showed samples composed mostly of "rust, mold and fibrous glass."
The ventilation system has since been cleaned and consultant Eric Althouse wrote in a late update Friday to Superintendent Michael Lannon that further tests are needed this weekend to determine current conditions.
Samples were taken from inside ductwork