Specter of Room 15 Haunts Poway School

For two years, a mysterious presence has pervaded Room 15 at Midland Elementary School in Poway.

The teachers noticed it. The children noticed it. And, a month ago, the parents become aware of it when the school sent home notes concerning the high bacteria and fungus counts in Room 15.

Midland Principal Fred Van Houten sent a note home with students March 30, explaining to parents that air sampling had been conducted in Room 15 and that other areas of the school were being tested.

The initial results showed abnormally high presence of bacteria and fungi microorganisms in the air, which might have caused the reports of rashes, headaches and other allergic reactions among students and staff.

Meanwhile, Room 15’s 31 youngsters and their teacher, Peggy Johnson, were moved to another room, a former school library. They remain there still, happy in their outsized quarters, while the controversy over the classroom contamination escalates.

Worried parents called the school office and school administrators to demand more information about the mysterious maladies and their causes and to report similar symptoms among their youngsters.

“Once the word was out that there was some sort of problem at the school, parents began to come forward and report to us that their children had rashes or complained of headaches and stomach aches,” Midland PTA President Barbara Curran said. Youngsters can fake a headache or an upset stomach when they want to stay home from school, but they can’t fake a rash, Curran reasoned.

School district officials called a parents’ meeting to calm the fears that had arisen by presenting evidence from experts--Cal-OSHA and the air sampling firm of Microbiological Services--that the children were in no danger.

But what had been planned as an informational exchange turned into a heated questioning session, where parents repeatedly asked questions for which there were no answers: Where did this mysterious fungi and bacteria come from? What are you going to do about it?

Jim Abbott, assistant superintendent of the Poway Unified School District, believes that the earnest attempts to inform parents boomeranged because “there was a misstatement of fact” in the first test reports that indicated “there was cause for concern” for the children.

A second testing firm--Med-Tox Inc.--was hired, and the results from those tests showed there was no reason to panic, that the results were within acceptable ranges of air quality, Abbott said. But Midland parents have yet to be shown the new figures and are less than pleased with what they perceive as the district’s failure to tell them all that is known about the testing and its implications.

Penny Ranftle, parent of a healthy Midland School youngster, says she is “frustrated and worried” over the growing number of youngsters who have been reported as affected by the mysterious bacterial invasion.

“There has been talk about some parents who are asking to have their children transferred to other schools, but my child is healthy, and I don’t think that I’d consider that,” Ranftle said. She acknowledges, however, that she is concerned that, five or 10 years down the road, evidence might surface that her child was exposed to something at Midland that might threaten his life.

Romeo Camozzi, assistant superintendent for elementary education, said that, so far, “only a handful of children” have been reported as having rashes or other allergic reactions, and that the absenteeism at Midland over the past two years has been no higher than at other Poway elementary schools.

“The problem is that we are working from a basis of ignorance,” Camozzi said. “There are no case histories on ‘sick building syndrome’ and there is no file of reference materials. This has not been researched.”

Camozzi was told of another California school district afflicted with the same mysterious bacterial invasion but he has yet to track it down and find out if the problem with which Poway is wrestling was solved satisfactorily somewhere else.

Abbott said the problem in Room 15 had surfaced last year after another teacher in that room reported an unusual odor and complained about allergic reactions. She asked to be moved to a different classroom, and her request was granted, Abbott said.

Over last summer’s vacation, the building containing Room 15 was checked, and an unused natural gas line was found. The pipe was leaking, explaining the “residual odor,” in Room 15, Abbott explained.

“We capped the pipe and figured that we had solved the problem,” Abbott said. “But then it resurfaced last February when a parent of a child (in Room 15) brought it to our attention that the child was having some sort of allergic reaction to that room.”

That started the air-sampling and a series of letters to parents in an attempt to explain the situation.

One of the letters sent home before the weeklong spring break explained about the air samplings that “experts have determined that these microbe-size particles are non-carcinogenic and pose no life-threatening situation to the students or staff.”

A parent who asked that her name not be used said the letter “hit me like a brick.”

“I felt that I had very little idea what was going on at school, what the conditions were like. I guess I felt a little guilty that I hadn’t paid any attention until this came along,” she said.

Curran said that reaction was very common among Midland School parents.

“They wanted to know just what it was and wanted to know what was being done about it,” Curran said. “We don’t know, and, if the school knows, no one is telling us.”

So, after the week’s vacation was over, during which Room 15 and other classrooms received a thorough cleaning and more air sampling was conducted, a task force of parents descended upon Midland School and toured the campus, taking pictures and making notes.

What they found last week included mildew and mold in some of the classrooms, evidence of ceiling leakage in most of the classrooms, rusted gutters, a broken toilet in the girls’ restroom where four toilets serve about 300 schoolchildren, no soap and what they called unsanitary conditions in the boys’ restroom, peeling paint and a dozen other items.

Ranftle, who is a member of the parent task force, found a “squishy” area while inspecting the roof of a first-grade classroom during the April 20 tour. The first-grade class was moved to a multipurpose room, and maintenance workers probed the ceiling and found a bird nest measuring 4 feet across, Ranftle said.

“It was all too disgusting,” Ranftle said. “It was shocking what we found. I know that the school officials think that we are hysteric about this, although they don’t say so to our faces.”

The parent task force took its findings--along with pictures--to the Poway school board this week and received a pledge from the board for an investigation and a request to the County Department of Health to look into the conditions at Midland School.

Meanwhile, an army of maintenance workers has swarmed about the school campus making repairs and rechecking the suspect classrooms.

Principal Van Houten, who has been kept busy answering worried parents’ questions, meeting with parent groups and supervising the transfer of three classes to temporary quarters, said the buildings where most of the complaints came from are more than 40 years old and in need of constant maintenance.

“We usually do this sort of work during the summer,” he said, surveying the cluster of workmen.

“I know what the parents want. They want a new heating and air-conditioning system. So do I. They want new carpets for the classrooms. I do too. But, there is no evidence that any of this would help.”

Van Houten tends to side with the environmental experts who think the source of the bacteria and fungus found in the classroom samples is outside the buildings.

“There has been a lot of building going on around here, which has stirred things up,” the principal explained. In the past two years, a new residential subdivision went in behind Midland School, condominiums were built across the street and a new library and other construction went on at the school, he said.

“I tend to believe that all this construction has something to do with it, and the Med-Tox people tell us that the (bacterial) readings on the school playground are higher than in any of the rooms,” he said.

Then he shrugged his shoulders and conceded: “I really don’t know yet. I don’t think anyone does.”