Another area school district has been forced to cancel classes due to mold.
The Marion Center School District on Sunday afternoon announced that both the WA McCreery Elementary and Rayne Elementary school buildings will be closed this week after concerns about mold arose on Friday at the McCreery school. The Rayne school will be closed so that the district’s elementary students will all remain on the same schedule.
In a news release, the district says the McCreery school was closed on Friday because of high humidity, which was causing condensation in the classrooms and hallways. The humidity spiked due to a mechanical malfunction of the district’s HVAC system. Dehumidifiers and HEPA air scrubbers were placed throughout the building to lower the humidity and start the air purification process, and the maintenance and custodial staff is working with Prism Response Incorporated to start the cleaning and abatement process. Today, all of the duct work will be evaluated, cleaned, and sanitized.
The district is also working with its HVAC engineers to determine how to remediate the humidity issues that triggered the growth of the mold spores.
Both the McCreery and Rayne schools will be closed through Friday. The high school will continue to operate on its normal schedule, and high school students will continue to use the McCreery facilities because the cafeteria/pool/band room area uses a different HVAC system than the rest of McCreery. Testing done over the weekend showed no problems with the air quality in the cafeteria, and the district will continue to monitor it this week.
West Shamokin High School is anticipating the start of its academic year on Tuesday after twice being delayed by mold discovered in recent weeks.
