Barack Obama Elementary will close indefinitely after mold is found in art room and on computers
A day after families were told that air quality results came back negative for mold in the school building, parents, teachers and school leaders discovered mold on laptops and music equipment at Barack Obama Elementary a day before the school was set to reopen.
Ali Faruk, Richmond School Board representative for the 3rd District, confirmed to The Richmonder Monday morning that mold was found on the items in the auditorium while parents and staff were volunteering to help teachers set up their classrooms. The auditorium is located on the second floor of the building.
An hour after The Richmonder posted this story, RPS announced that the school will be closed indefinitely. More information will be provided at a 5:30 p.m. press conference.
He said that it is common to see some surface mold when mold remediation is conducted, especially in an old school like Barack Obama Elementary.
“The fact that there was some surface mold is not great, but laptops are something we can quickly clean off and in the meantime bring new laptops,” he said, speaking by phone from inside the building.
A source familiar with the matter first shared the issue with The Richmonder.
“Right now, it’s a very active environment in terms of figuring out what needs to be done with this stuff,” the source said Monday morning. “We're talking about over 300 laptops and thousands of dollars in equipment.”
On Sunday evening, Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras told families air quality tests came back clear for the entire building excluding the art room.
“Our contractor believes this is because the art room is filled with porous materials like construction paper, which can hold onto mold spores for quite a while,” he wrote.
Kamras gave the green light for teachers to prepare for a Tuesday school opening while sealing off the art room for continued remediation. The media center, which is in the same hallway as the art room, was also sealed off. Both rooms are located in the basement of the building.
Victoria A. Ifatusin
The issue of mold at the building was first raised when Kamras told families that administrators and contractors found mold growth in the basement and on furniture after an HVAC outage, impacting the school’s air quality. Results initially came back with elevated levels of mold throughout the building.
Administrators also found rodents at the school. An exterminator treated the school for pest control last week, Kamras said, and “there have been zero reports of pests since.”
Contact Reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin at vifatusin@richmonder.org. This story has been updated to clarify that the timeline for reopening is uncertain.
