Construction Has School Shouting

A strong odor of natural gas prompted the brief evacuation of several classrooms Tuesday at a Hidden Hills elementary school, following weeks of complaints by parents and school officials about disruption from a nearby grading project.

“It’s been a nightmare,” said Rose Dunn, principal at Round Meadow Elementary School. “Kids said they had headaches and weren’t feeling well. This construction has been a big disruption to our school from the beginning.”

Responding to a call from a teacher, firefighters investigated and confirmed the scent of natural gas, but did not find a leak.

For more than a month, the school has sought the help of the Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles County Public Works Department and the Southern California Air Quality Management District to restrict the construction during school hours. Officials from those agencies said they could not intervene, because the developer had a permit for the work and was violating no laws.

“We don’t do anything if no crime has been committed,” said Sgt. Jon Jones of the Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff’s Station.

The project’s developer, Bill Rheinshild, said he had reached an informal agreement with the school to refrain from using loud equipment during school hours, but recent rains had set back crews, which ignored the pact the last two weeks to make up for lost time.

“As a parent, it has not been my desire to inflict negative effects on the school,” Rheinshild said. “But I’ve got hard-core construction guys sitting around all day getting paid a lot of money to do nothing.”

Rheinshild said he would complete the grading this week. He hopes to beat the next rain and avoid a repeat of the mudslide that occurred Feb. 29 at the site, closing Mureau Road, the only public street with access to Round Meadow.

Parents and teachers at the school are unaccustomed to excessive noise, because no one has cleared a tract of land in the area for more than a decade, said Mark Petrella, the county district engineer who mediated the agreement between the school and Rheinshild.

“We told the school that the developer had not anticipated this being a problem,” Petrella said. “And we told the developer he might want to comply with any reasonable request to keep happy neighbors. But as far as clamping down on the developer, that’s outside our authority.”

Round Meadow, with 685 students, sits on a hill at the southern tip of Hidden Hills, a gated community in the southwestern portion of the San Fernando Valley.

Teachers said they had begun using amplification systems to be heard in class over the roar of earthmovers.

After recess Tuesday, the sound of massive grading trucks filled fourth-grade teacher Cynthia Hughes’ classroom. She raised the volume on her public address system before addressing the class.

“At least the windows don’t shake anymore,” she said during a break. “Now it’s just talking over the creaking and cranking noises. I don’t see why they can’t work something out so they’re not disturbing class.”

Hughes originally used the portable microphone and P.A. system to assist two hearing-impaired students. Now, she said, she has to turn it up so the other students can hear her.

Debra Jaffe, who took her son and daughter home during the brief evacuation, said, “Maybe I should just home-school them until this project is over.”