Deteriorating building conditions in Harford County’s older public schools were the subject of evocative comments by members of the public and a photo presentation by the president of the teacher’s union at a March 12 meeting of the Harford County Board of Education.
Laura Runyeon, president of the Youth’s Benefit Elementary School PTA, cited a host of facilities failures at the two-building school located in Fallston:
“Our primary building has asbestos in the ceiling and floor tiles, we cannot drink the water in our intermediate building and the water fountains have either been taped up or removed entirely. Our boilers fail to adequately heat the water in the cafeterias so our students are periodically required to use foam trays and our cafeteria workers have to wash the utensils multiple times in bleach water. We have a failing septic, leaking roofs, a significant lack of classroom space, a significant lack of space for assembly and teacher planning, an inability to increase technology due to a lack of electrical capacity and a lack of space in classrooms for computers or a computer lab. The children and teachers in our intermediate building are forced to try to perform and achieve in open classrooms; an architectural design for classroom space that has long been proven ill-conceived.”
According to a school profile published on the HCPS Web site, the facilities at Youth’s Benefit opened in 1953, with upgrades or renovations occurring in 1968, 1973 and 1995.
Air conditioning is also in the works for the Youth’s Benefit primary building, but a lack of funding has put a planned replacement of both buildings on hold, along with other major school improvement projects county wide. Such projects are paid for by a combination of state and county funds.
Chris Scholz, a teacher at Havre de Grace High School, cited problems in his school including a leaky ceiling, a bathroom stall door that has been missing for six months and a bathroom window that, Scholz said, had been broken for a year and was being held together with duct tape. If your building shows signs of water damage, you may need to work with a Water Damage Restoration Company Matawan NJ to help ensure that your property is safe for use and/or habitation. If major renovation work is necessary, building owners or managers may need to hire commercial remodelers.
A new roof for Havre de Grace High is in Harford County Public Schools’ capital budget request for fiscal 2013. According to the published school profile, the facilities opened in 1955, with a renovation and the addition of a multipurpose room occurring in 1983.
At Prospect Mill Elementary School in Bel Air, the winter temperature in one teacher’s classroom averaged in the mid to low 50s, and mold in the building caused her to suffer from asthma and allergies resulting in missed time from work, according to a statement from the teacher read by union representative Seleste Harris. According to the statement, the teacher has since transferred from the school for health reasons.
Conditions at William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary School in Abingdon prompted comments from several speakers who advocated for improvements to the facilities. Stephanie Snead told school board members that she was a volunteer at William Paca/Old Post Road but didn’t want to use the “really nasty” bathrooms while she was there. She also cited a lack of hot water, leaks in the roof and black mold spores at the school.
Holding back tears, Dawn Johnson said that she was representing “the children who have no voice.” Johnson, who didn’t identify her relationship to William Paca/Old Post Road, said that students there deserved a building that was comparable to others in the county. Children who attend the school had little food and lived in neighborhoods where they had seen shootings and stabbings, Johnson said. She asked board members, “Can you imagine what that must be like as a child?” Johnson pleaded several times with school board members, “Won’t you please be their hero?” She said that the school was irreparable and had too many problems to list. Addressing Superintendent Robert Tomback, she asked, “Won’t you please be the superintendent who says, ‘I’ve had enough. I care.’”
According to a profile of William Paca/Old Post Road published on the HCPS Web site, the facilities opened in 1956 with renovations or additions occurring in 1964, 1985, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000.
“Unintended Consequences”
Randy Cerveny, president of the Harford County Education Association, said that deteriorating building conditions in Harford County Public Schools could easily be addressed if the School Board had the money, but, he said, “your hands, in many cases, are tied.”
Cerveny noted that the total square footage of school buildings had expanded in recent years with new construction and modernizations, but he said that the overall size of the custodial staff had not changed. School board members set priorities and avoided cutting staff in recent years, Cerveny said, but, “the lack of funding by the county has unintended consequences to the buildings and the students.”
Cerveny gave school board members a series of photos taken at William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary showing stains and mold on ceiling tiles in several classrooms, dirty air vents, and rusty sinks, shelves and desks. One photo showed a door secured with a bar; another showed what Cerveny said was tar melting from the roof of the Paca building into the school through a classroom ceiling.
Noting that a planned installation of air conditioning would rectify some problems, Cerveny said that mold and mildew, which he said were linked in a national study to symptoms such as wheezing and headaches, must be properly removed.
School Board President Leonard Wheeler asked Cerveny who had taken the photos, which were not shown to the public at the meeting. Cerveny deflected, saying they were taken by “some of my friends”, and added that the conditions were identical in county schools of the same age.
Wheeler didn’t press the point on the photos, but instead asked Superintendent Tomback to have his staff review the presentation and report back as soon as possible, “to see where we agree” and what actions need to be taken. Speaking to Cerveny about his concerns, Wheeler said, “those concerns, once they are confirmed, we share them.”
Below is a selection from the Power Point presentation on William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary School presented by Cerveny to the Harford County Board of Education on March 12, 2012. Please note that the William Paca building houses grades 3, 4 and 5. The Old Post Road building houses Pre-K through second grade.
Thank you Laura Runyeon for speaking out about the desperate need for a new elementary school in Fallston. Every day that I send my little one to Y.B.E.S. I feel troubled based on the pathetic physical condition of the school. I spend time in many HCPS’s and ours ranks in the top based on need for a new facility. This is not hyperbole. The condition is that bad. Why are we always pushed to the bottom of the list?
While I empathize with you and your kids, you are by no means at the bottom of the list. These kind of conditions exist in many schools. Harford County has pathetically underfunded schools for many years. THe school board fixes what they can with the money they have. If David Craig has his way your children will continue to go to schools that need serious renovations while he builds a $20,000,000 Emergency Operations Center. We need you to stand up. Come to the county council. Tell them to fix the schools and fund the school budget. Tell David Craig that his serial underfunding of HCPS cannot continue.
If David Craig found a cure for cancer, you would complain that he was ignoring heart disease.
Thank you HCEA and others for bringing this issue to the school board! Hopefully it will be enough of a wake up call for the powers that be to do something to repair these schools. That being said, it is not entirely their fault for not acting on it since they can only do so much with the money they have, however, some things could definitely be cut in the HCPS budget and sent towards renovations…perhaps cutting down on Central Office bureaucrats? But I digress. Correct me if I am wrong but Havre de Grace and Joppatowne seem to be the only two high schools that have not been renovated or rebuilt. HHS is in poor condition, perhaps not as severe as Paca seems to be, but getting there. Does anyone know if there are any plans to renovate or replace the current HHS?
@Silence Dogood – A scope study has been approved for Havre de Grace HS, which is an early step in the process for major modernization.
Among the comprehensive county high schools that have not been modernized recently, Joppatowne & Havre de Grace are the oldest. The Joppatowne facility is the “younger” of the two – it opened in 1972.
Thank you!
As I mentioned in my original post, I have the opportunity and pleasure of visiting most schools on Harford County. YBES is at the top or bottom, depending on your view, of old, deteriorated, physical plants. I’ve never breathed in septic tank gases or watched kids drink out of water coolers due to lead contamination in the interior pipes, etc., etc.. I get your point Mr. Burbey. I’m not interested in game playing, who’s the best, who’s the worst, who’s at fault. YBES is problematic and needs immediate attention. My personal opinion is that the YBES parents, as a whole, need to come together and address this issue. But, I’m afraid many are scared of rocking the boat and being labeled malcontents. Or, the moms and dads are way too busy going to soccer, baseball, lacrosse, whatever. Dr. Ben Carson certainly puts sports and education in the correct perspective, but I diverge. Hopefully, things will change…..
I agree with you completely. My point really is that all of the maintenance issues are top priority. All the issues should be corrected.
I don’t have any kids in school, but I think you guys should get an accounting of the monies collected under the Impact Fees from new residential construction. Those fees were supposed to be used for the schools, weren’t they?
All new construction and major renovation of HCPS buildings is on hold. There is NO money coming from county government to do these projects. The county government plans to hire an outside firm to come in and assess the quality of all county owned and HCPS buildings. The results of which will not be known for AT LEAST a year. Following the study a priority list will be set for all buildings based on need. Just because a building is old does not mean it is not functional. Maybe upgrades are needed but not an entire building replacement. Some newer buildings may need the wrecking ball because of poor construction (Black Box as an example). We will have to wait for the study to be complete.
Can HCPS do a better job of building maintenance? Maybe, but that still requires large sums of money. With no money coming from the county the school system would have to find funds from within their limited capital budget, which would still need county government approval. What programs would you propose to be cut, fees should the school system charge, or classroom teacher reductions should be made to move funding from the operating budget to the capital budget to help pay for this? Cutting a few jobs in central office will not begin to save the kind of money needed to fund major building projects.
Frustrations are high in some parts of the county. Priorities in the HCPS capital budget change, sometimes by forces beyond HCPS control (Red Pump ES, the push for a new John Archer school). Overall the school system does a pretty good job with the resources they are GIVEN.
As hard as it may be people just have to accept that as the old saying goes, “money does now grow on trees.” Money comes out of taxpayer pockets and the priorities of taxpayers are not always the same.
The schools are run, on very little custodial help, they base the number of custodians on the square footage in the buildings, this is the first mistake they should base this on the amount of use the building has, the overall wear and tear of the buildings, the technical side of the buildings such as the maintenance of the boilers, HVAC, systems, this requires an army of people.
The underfunding of schools has resulted in under-staffing.
No they have always been understaffed, preventive maintenance has never been a priority. its always been repair an item after it breaks, well the cost of materials has skyrocketed, the staffing situation has gotten worse, the budget situation has gotten worse, SCHOOL MAINT is a business and needs to be run like a business
Buildings, infrastructure, etc. have life spans. They can only be prolonged for so long until they have expired or the capital improvements necessary for fundamental safety and functionality exceed the cost of a new structure. This also applies to there is only so much magic custodians/physical plant staff can perform until a structure crumbles. Where has all my tax money gone?
I produced and directed the feature documentary Black Mold Exposure at http;//www.blackmoldexposuremovie.com and unfortunately these situations are going to continue until people begin to do scheduled maintenance to inspect for water intrusion, which is the number one cause of mold intrusion. Mold cannot grow and proliferate without water. It has caused severe and debilitating illness spanning over a decade for many in my film. There is an extensive mold segment in the documentary. I hope this get resolved quickly with little pain to those already involved.
These pictures look like a third world country and unfortunately this situation is not just in Harford County. No one should have to teach and learn in such unhealthy conditions! I can assure you that mold can be extremely dangerous to your health and even be life threatening. It is a very REAL nightmare and must be taken very seriously.For more information go to http://www.survivingmold.com, one of the best Drs. in this field of medicine is right out our back door in southern Maryland. You can also find excellent information at http://www.schoolmoldhelp.org Research and learn all you can to protect yourselves and the students. Our children depend on the adults in their lives to protect them!!
There is a signficant rodent infestation at Edgewood Middle School. Students and staff deserve a clearn environment free of mice droppings, etc. The administration has known of this problem since the fall and still no intervention. A call was made by this parent to the Health Department but they referred me to the Facilities department. Get it cleaned up now. Mice droppings carry disease. If this was another area of the county it would have been taken care of the next day. Edgewood students and staff are deserving of a clean, healthy environment to learn.
I can attest to Kathleen’s comment; have seen it first hand.
It makes me sick that teachers and students are in such environments! There is no place for rodents, water damage and mold in any of our public buildings! This is a total disgrace and Harford Co. should be ashamed of themselves. Our schools(& other public buildings) are falling apart and it is totally unacceptable! This should be very alarming to everyone, the health and safety of teachers, students & the public should be the TOP priority!!!!
It is very nice of the mice to infest the middle school, and not touch the new buildings on either side of it. There is mold in every building, new or old. Very dramatic posts though.
I’d bet they aren’t in the new buildings because of the new foundation and structure. There aren’t the holes for them to actually get into those buildings.
And how long until Mr Burbey complains about Mr Craig abusing animals if EMS let 2-4 cats roam the building?
That sounds like a workable and environmentally sound solution to mice but what about the mold, the leaking roof and the A/C that does not work proporerly?
Mold can cause serious health problems. For accurate information about the health effects of mold, go to http://truthaboutmold.info and check out the Global Indoor Health Network at http://globalindoorhealthnetwork.com. Be sure to read GIHN’s new position statement.
In addition to those cats, how about a few windows that actually open to allow for air to flow through naturally and dry it out…sorry, that’s way too simple and cost-effective for us. I’m sure there must be a multi-million dollar solution on somebody’s desk!
Buildings rarely have openable windows anymore due to green building requirements, opening the window compromises the airflow through the building and allows unconditioned/treated area to circulate which makes the system work harder to meet the temperature/humidty set point. The problem is when someone turns off the heating/cooling system for extended periods of time to save money, which allows mold to grow vs a properly conditioned building being hostile to mold growth.
I realize that Kharn, it was irony. Green buildings that are sealed tight are anything but healthy. Good old fashioned windows that open may well solve some of these issues, but not the lead and asbestos situation, nor the leaking roofs. Let’s face it, all those taxes we’re paying are being squandered elsewhere. Hmmm – not sure where though – our schools and roads are falling apart. Our taxes may well rise before the State house vacates tonight and none of these situations will be addressed. Good thing we have turf fields and community centers popping up everywhere.
The modern buildings are not the problem. It is the ones from the 70s and 80s with poor building codes… and even worse HVAC.
New or old, any building with water damage can have mold and most schools have a flat roof hence LEAKS!! Mold can be extremely dangerous and at times can be life threatening. Harford County needs to protect the children. PLEASE do your homework and get the REAL facts about mold and the debilitating illness it can cause. The children are depenging on the adults in their lives to take care of them!! I have 8 yrs. worth of valuable information. Anyone interested may contact me anytime! Go to http://www.survivingmold.com AND watch CNN with Anderson Cooper on Sunday, April 15th at 8PM. Story is about toxic mold in homes in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area!!!