West Elementary temporarily relocates 3 classrooms for mold cleaning

Tyler Hanes, The Cullman Times, Ala.
·2 min read

Aug. 5—Three classrooms in West Elementary School will be temporarily closed for the beginning of the school year while recently discovered mold is cleaned out of the area — a process that should be finished within the next couple of weeks.

Cullman City Schools Superintendent Kyle Kallhoff said only two of the classrooms are being used for classroom instruction, and there will be around 50 students who will be moved into a new room for the beginning of the year.

He said West Elementary already had enough room on campus for the classes to have a temporary home, so there is no need for any temporary classrooms to be brought in — and the backlog for temporary classrooms is so long that the mold issue would have already been addressed before one could be brought in.

The mold was discovered in the late summer and as soon as it was reported by Principal Jay Page, the system brought in environmental health and safety consulting firm Terrell Technical Services to inspect the school, Kallhoff said.

"We went ahead and air quality tested the entire campus," he said.

After Terrell gave the all-clear on the air quality and gave clearance to start cleaning the three rooms and hallway where the growth was detected, Servpro was brought in to begin the cleaning on Wednesday morning, Kallhoff said.

West Elementary has faced mold issues in the past, as there was some cleanup required in the fall of 2018 that was caused by moisture in the school's ceiling after the hail damage received in the March 2018 hail storm.

Kallhoff said the discovery of mold this week is not related to that storm damage and comes from an air conditioner that has been creating too much condensation.

"It is not a result of the hail storm," he said. "It is an HVAC issue."

While Servpro is already at the school to clean up the mold that has been found, an HVAC engineer will be coming to the school this week to help the system address the condensation issue and prevent any future mold issues from occurring, he said.

"We're getting this treated, but we've got to fix the bigger issue," he said.