When Kathy Weeks started teaching at Battles Elementary School in Santa Maria 15 years ago, she was a brand new teacher beginning her career in a brand new school. After a short time on the job, she came down with brand new illnesses.
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Joe Reyes shown here with Fernando Bravo at Adam School where he and his wife Jennifer (below on this page) teach now. They left Battles Elementary in Santa Maria when mold problems got out of hand. |
"I noticed that I was getting really sick during the week, and, when I was at home on the weekends, I felt better," she recalls. "I had really swollen, red and watery eyes. I was coughing. I would have headaches and skin rashes. I eventually got so sick, I was pulled out of work."
She was not alone. Other members of the Santa Maria Elementary Education Association developed asthma and throat lesions, thyroid problems and migraines. A few had miscarriages. "Students had bloody noses, head aches, eye problems and stomach aches."
Around that time, teacher Joe Reyes smelled something horrible in his classroom. Later that day, he fell down on the men's room floor in a coughing fit.
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Jennifer Reyes |
His wife, Jennifer, who taught at the school, suffered painful headaches on a daily basis and frequent sinus infections. One day, after she blacked out and drove into a tree, a neurologist advised her to stop working at the school.
"I left the school before there were any more incidents," says Jennifer Reyes. "It was hard on me and hard on my family."
Administrators "didn't believe us," says Weeks. "They accused me and other female teachers of having 'female problems.' It scared me, being a non-tenured teacher. I think they thought I was nuts."
"People who complained were ostracized," says Reyes. "They were described as complainers or unhappy employees by former administrators."
When their union got involved and parents joined them in complaining, administrators finally listened. A firm that was brought in to investigate blamed the problem on poor ventilation. But eventually other problems came to light: The school was not only infested with mold, but also sitting on top of an old oil sump.
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Kathy Weeks stuck it out at Battles and is now on the mend. |
When the school was constructed, the windows were put in backwards. Instead of keeping water out, they let it in. Gutters were improperly installed, as was a sump trap in the kitchen. Under-powered circulation pumps in the air and heating system left the building poorly ventilated.
Part of the school was closed briefly in 1998 while the mold and ventilation problems were cleaned up. Later, in an agreement worked out with the union, the district removed the oil sump and put vapor film between the soil and the buildings. The incidence of illness has been greatly reduced as a result.
Nearly half of the 30 teachers left the embattled site due to the controversy, among them the Reyeses who now teach at Adam Elementary School nearby. Weeks, who is still at Battles, says her health problems are, for the most part, better.
Still, teachers are concerned. The soil surrounding the school has never been removed. It was tested a year ago, but the results were not shared with teachers despite repeated requests. Fears were raised again a few weeks ago when people started retesting it, says a Battles teacher who wishes to remain anonymous. "Somebody knows something, but teachers aren't being told anything."
