Posted by Next up in 5
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Next up in 5
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ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — Mold was found in a fifth Alamance-Burlington School Monday.
Williams High School is the latest to be impacted a week before the start of classes.
The other schools with mold issues are Andrews Elementary, Newlin Elementary, Cummings High, and Broadview Middle School.
All of them are within Burlington city limits, and about 10 minutes away from each other.
According to the district in the past, they did not do yearly inspections.
Issues were only reported when administrators saw them.
The first issue was reported at Andrews Elementary during summer cleaning in July.
Students are now safe to return there for the start of school after days of repairs to the HVAC system the district said caused the problem.
Weeks later mold was found at Newlin Elementary for the same reason.
Newlin students will start school at Ray Street Academy and Ray Street students will go to Graham Middle School.
Patsy Simpson served on the school board for 17 years before retiring this year.
She said the mold concerns in the ABSS are not new.
“There are issues at Graham Middle we don’t want to move the children twice,” Simpson said. “We just did renovations and additions at southern high school where we added classrooms It’s a little disturbing to me that the proposal is to take them from our alternative school and put them in graham middle.”
Simpson shared photos she took in 2017 at Cummings and Broadview where mold was growing on the ceiling.
Back in 2017, ABSS Board of Education members Patsy Simpson and Pamela Thompson went to Cummings High and Broadview…
She said at the time all the board could do was have maintenance put a band-aid on the problem due to a lack of funding.
“It’s the result of inadequate funding in the capital improvement budget. From 2008 to 2019 our school system received between $250,000 to $350,000 in capital improvement,” Simpson said. “That’s for everything. We could not have done anything else to maintain our schools, it’s a result of neglect.”
Now the future is uncertain for students at Broadview Middle and Cummings High School.
Tameka Harvey has three children who attend Cummings.
“My kids love Cummings and we want to start school on the 28th there,” Harvey said. “I want them to be safe and in a safe environment, my son has health issues with breathing. I wouldn’t want him to go there if there is an issue there.”
Harvey’s son has asthma and her daughters spent the summer in the building for cheer practice.
“Why does it take you to find it out 7 days before school starts to find out? We spend massive amounts of money on new schools and other things but still, we have our older schools that are not in great condition,” Harvey said. “Why can’t we spend that same money to make sure our kids and these schools get the same treatment.”
The district is waiting for test results at Cummings and Broadview before they make a decision.
As for Williams High School, it is closed and students will instead go to Turrentine Middle.
Mold was found in several classrooms and other areas Monday.
The district said at its meeting on Aug. 28 they’ll discuss hiring an outside firm to conduct indoor air quality testing and roof evaluations at all schools.
ABSS has used $1.2 million of its $3.3 million in capital improvement funds to make repairs so far.
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