Hundreds of Springfield children spend seven hours a day, five days a week, nine months out of the year at German Gerena Community School, which may or may not have a severe mold problem, depending on who you ask.
According to parents and community leaders, including Ward One City Councilor Adam Gomez, there is black mold in the Gerena School that needs to be removed.
Following tests conducted in 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a report in August that says mold was found on every floor of the building, and increased in contamination level the higher the floors went. The highest mold contamination found in a classroom was at a level 3, a designation by the EPA that means the mold is spread over a space of 30-100 feet.
But while Patrick Sullivan — director of the city’s parks and recreation department, which oversees public building facilities — doesn’t dispute that the EPA found some mold, he notes that 40 percent of homes in America contain mold, and some of what people in the community are calling mold are actually rust stains. He’s also quick to point out that Springfield has invested $4.7 million into maintaining and repairing Gerena’s many physical problems including removing moldy materials, painting peeling walls, repairing electrical wiring, and plugging holes to prevent leaks.
“When the EPA went in there and you would see ceiling tiles that probably did have mold stains on them — that’s what they’re referring to — and we took those ceiling tiles out and the water lines have been fixed,” Sullivan says.
Meanwhile, 20 percent of Gerena School students have asthma, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The state average is 10 percent. And though MCAS test scores have been improving, the school is considered a Level 3 school, which means it’s among the 20 percent worst performing schools in the state.
It’s also worth noting that the student body is 80 percent Hispanic and 16 percent black; 85 percent of students have “high” educational needs, and 81 percent are economically disadvantaged, according to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
In April, community members rallied at the school to push city officials to improve the school building. After all, Gerena has been dealing with water leakage — which is occasionally so severe that the school is closed — since at least the early 2000s.
Built in 1975 between I-91 and the railroad tracks on Bernie Avenue, the school is a four-building complex connected by underground tunnels. It’s the tunnels that suffer the most water damage.
“The tunnel connecting Main Street to Plainfield Street is filled with puddles of stagnant water and black mold all along the wall,” says Jafet Robles, a community organizer with Springfield-based Neighbor to Neighbor that helped put the rally together at Gerena. “The odor of dampness is strongly discernible. The middle window is cracked and seems ready to come down at any time. The tiles have been patched up poorly and are in clear need of repair or replacement. There are areas that have holes exposing the original concrete floor.”
Sullivan says the building is “very safe” an d that he “wouldn’t tolerate it if it weren’t.” He also says he understands why the community is upset and looking for immediate relief. But the city isn’t going to spend much more money on improving Gerena until the state releases a promised $3 million to fix the root of the building’s problems: a busted I-91 membrane, an underground lining that protects against water damage, that is allowing most of the water to pour down the walls and into Gerena’s tunnels.
Funding for the highway work is earmarked in the state’s $13 billion transportation bond bill passed in 2014. But neither Governors Deval Patrick nor Charlie Baker have released that money yet.
I can’t imagine that students in an affluent neighborhood would be going to schools with standing water in the hallways and visible mold on the walls for a week, let alone years, as has been the case at Gerena.
The state’s lack of school building standards for health and safety, and the continued decision to withhold earmarked funds to remedy the situation are putting a generation of children — and larger group of residents who use the facility as a community center — at risk of developing lifelong breathing and ailments.
How is there money to purchase electronic highway signs reminding drivers to “Use Yah Blinkah,” but not $3 million to make sure children aren’t spending all day in a damp, moldy public school building? By law, these students have to be at school — or be home schooled, attend a different school through choice, or attend a charter/private school. These aren’t options for many of the families sending their children to Gerena, though enrollment at the school has been on a steady decline over the last several years. Is the plan for helping these kids to wait until all students transfer through school choice? Or to forget about the students who get left behind?
Gov. Baker: Release the money to fix I-91 by Bernie Avenue in Springfield, instead of sentencing children to risk their health for an education.
Contact Kristin Palpini at editor@valleyadvocate.com.
