THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 17, 1995 TAG: 9510170265
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Responding to a parent's complaint about air quality at Tarrallton Elementary, school administrators on Monday sent a private consultant to sample the building for airborne pollutants that might pose health risks for teachers and students.
Testing by the school system's risk management department for mold and mildew buildup ``has not found any problem of a magnitude that would create a hazard,'' Deputy Superintendent J. Frank Sellew said.
He said an outside consultant was hired to resolve concerns voiced by a parent who said her two children were diagnosed with asthma-like symptoms after becoming sick at the school two weeks ago.
The parent, Pat Jackson, said Monday that she had to take her daughters, 7- and 8-year-old second-graders, to the hospital.
Jackson, who at first thought they had colds, acted after they complained of chest pains and breathing problems. She said a doctor at Portsmouth Naval Hospital told her the girls were suffering from asthma, probably caused by breathing dust or mold.
The doctor could not link her children's condition to the school, Jackson said. But Jackson said teachers have told her that mold and mildew are a problem. Jackson said she is going to raise the issue at a PTA meeting tonight at 6:30 at the school.
``It ticks me off,'' Jackson said. ``I try to keep my house clean and my kids healthy, and for them to be sitting in mold and mildew and having to breathe that, I think affects their quality of education.''
Jackson said her kids are back in the school but are using inhalers.
School administrators said a mildew problem discovered last summer in the school librarycleared up after a malfunctioning air conditioner and a leaky wall pipe were repaired.
Sellew said three of approximately 25 teachers wanted their rooms checked by the private company testing the school's air quality.
Jackson, who lives in Navy housing, said she sent letters to 388 families in the complex and got responses from four parents who said their children had symptoms like those experienced by Jackson's kids. About 450 children attend the school.
It could take two weeks before test results are available, school officials said. T-C Analytics of Norfolk is doing the work.
Air quality complaints have surfaced at 12 other schools in the region: eight in Virginia Beach, three in Chesapeake and one in Portsmouth. But Tarrallton, built in the mid-1960s, is the first in Norfolk, Sellew said.
KEYWORDS: SICK BUILDING NORFOLK SCHOOLS AIR QUALITY by CNB