Teachers say HHS rooms are harmful

Hightstown High School teachers told the Board of Education that the school’s modular addition is making teachers sick.

By: Mark Moffa
   HIGHTSTOWN — Hightstown High School’s modular addition is making teachers there sick, according to the East Windsor Education Association, the teachers’ union.
   HHS union representative Terri Tuliszewski presented school board members with a list of 39 problems in the modular addition at the board’s Monday meeting. The modular addition is essentially an enhanced trailer attached to the actual building.
   "The staff and students at Hightstown High School who spend much of their time in these modulars are fed up with inadequate heating and cooling units, pipes that burst, odors that make them sick, visits to the school nurse and medical professionals for respiratory illnesses, leaking air conditioning pipes, units that make distracting noises, carpets that remain damp, mold that grows, windows that don’t work, screens that have holes and are falling out, switches that are not replaced and circuits that remain off and in our new addition, roaches," Ms. Tuliszewski said at the meeting, reading from a prepared statement.
   Board members and Business Administrator David Shafter appeared taken aback by the complaints. Mr. Shafter said he would request air-quality sampling be done in the addition immediately.
   "If there is a problem we want to remediate it as quickly as possible," he said. Mr. Shafter said that Pars Environmental Services will meet with staff at the school and decide what type of tests to take. Then, Mr. Shafter said, the district would look at any recommendations from Pars and do any work that is needed.
   Mr. Shafter and board President Bruce Ettman said they were disappointed to hear of the problems for the first time at a school board meeting.
   "I’m concerned that I heard that there was a health concern expressed for the first time at a board meeting," Mr. Ettman said on Wednesday. "I’m hoping that it isn’t a condition that’s existed for a while that nobody bothered to say anything about.
   "There is no indication that the district did not respond to concerns in that area of the building at any time," he added.
   Mr. Shafter, at the meeting, said, "I hope that if there is active mold that we would hear about it before several months after the last notification."
   Ms. Tuliszewski said she submitted information to high school Principal William Roesch in October about conditions in the modular classrooms.
   Mr. Shafter said he was aware of the Oct. 13 memo. "Most of the Oct. 13 problems were remediated," he said.
   Ms. Tuliszewski said the modulars were closed for a year and a half after she first addressed the board about mold and other issues with the classrooms in 1994. Repairs were made during that time. Now, she said, many of the same problems exist.
   Ms. Tuliszewski’s concerns relate to the school district’s expansion plans. Voters last year approved a $64.4 million referendum allowing the district to expand and renovate each of its schools. The plan for the high school does not involve eliminating the modular classrooms.
   According to the school’s plans, the modulars, which currently are attached to the end of one of the building’s wings, would be further incorporated into the building and a hallway actually would bisect the addition.
   "We feel that this is a very serious health condition," EWEA President Janet Amenhauser said at Monday’s meeting. She also expressed concern about the construction plans for the building. "We’re building onto things that were only supposed to be temporary," she said.
   School board member Sheri Grunwerg said she was unaware that there still were problems with the area.
   "Up until receiving this packet of information, I had no idea what was going on in these classes," Ms. Grunwerg said. "I think we have to act as soon as possible. It’s not a healthy situation."
   She suggested the board take a walk through the modulars at its next meeting at the high school, Feb. 10.
   Mr. Shafter said on Wednesday that he was trying to schedule a meeting with EWEA officials to walk through the modulars. He said, however, that the construction plans for the building will not change. "It can’t be done," he said.
   The plans were approved by the state and any changes at this point would have to be resubmitted, thereby delaying the construction schedule and costing more money. The district cannot bond for more than the amount approved by the voters.
   "There are not sufficient funds to replace these classrooms from the bond referendum unless something else is not done at the high school," Mr. Shafter said. "These problems take considerable amounts of time and money to repair."
   Also, Mr. Ettman said, the teachers did have an opportunity to say something earlier about the modulars. "We did have a very long public process making these plans," he said.
   Mr. Shafter said the roof was repaired and mold removed after the district was notified in October by Ms. Tuliszewski. He also said that the heating problems relate to the teachers’ actions. He said teachers are shutting off the heaters at the circuit breakers. Without air flowing through the units at all times, he said, the coils freeze. He said the district intends to install a device to prevent the heaters from being turned off.
   But high school teacher Debby Scherholz said at Monday’s meeting that it gets too hot in the rooms. She said the classrooms are about 85 degrees when teachers arrive in the morning and that the air conditioning doesn’t cool the rooms enough in the summer. Ms. Scherholz also said the filters in the heaters are not being changed as often as they should.
   "They really need to do something drastic with those modulars — tear them down," she said.
   Teacher Sandy Finkelstein echoed Ms. Scherholz’s sentiments, calling the modulars "a piece of junk."
   "It seems that everything we’ve done with the modulars have been Band-Aid operations," she said to the board. "It’s time to get rid of it.
   "You feel the trailers vibrate," Ms. Finkelstein added. "I don’t know how it’s going to hold as a passageway."
   Mr. Shafter said that 34 of the 39 items on Ms. Tuliszewski’s list will be solved either through the bond projects or within the next five years through the district’s five-year plan. He said the classrooms will receive new windows and new heating and air conditioning systems. Also, representatives from the district’s architect firm, The Prisco Group, were at Monday’s meeting and said a structural engineer would examine the modular classrooms.
   Mr. Shafter also said the floor should feel different when walking in the modular areas since there is hollow space beneath the floors.
   Ms. Tuliszewski said Monday at the school that the union does not plan to give in on its request to revise the HHS addition plans, even if the district’s air quality tests show no health hazard.
   "We’re forming documentation of trips to the doctors," she said.