Mold cleanup at Pine Bush school to take twice as long

March 22--PINE BUSH -- The mold mitigation project at Pine Bush Elementary School will take longer than the initial expectations, with no concrete end date.

In mid-February, the district began a project to search for and remove any mold in classrooms at the elementary school after a burst pipe flooded part of the school's first floor on Jan. 9.

Now, a large portion of the elementary school is closed off while contractors tear apart classrooms, clean any mold and rebuild.

"As we expected, we found mold in a variety of places," Superintendent Tim Mains said in a letter to parents.

After the flooding, the district hired industrial hygienist John Evans of Adaptive Environmental Consulting of New York to do mold spore testing. A test in early February showed that mold spore counts had spiked in one classroom, leading to the immediate mold probe project.

The project, originally estimated to last four weeks, could take as long as eight to 12 weeks, Mains said.

"We're making good progress on the demolition part, but it takes longer to put it back together than it does to tear it apart," Mains said.

The district also needs to redesign the cabinets attached to walls in classrooms and the bookshelves in the library, Mains said.

Mains said he recently told teachers that they hope to have the classes back to their own rooms by the end of the school year.

During the school board meeting on Tuesday, the board accepted a $1,000 donation from the Adaptive Environmental Consulting Group. The donation was given for the displaced teachers to buy new games and toys for their classrooms, Mains said.

Many teachers who moved classrooms had their nonessential items sanitized and boxed up before the construction began.

No cost estimate was immediately available for the work, but Mains said the school's insurance will cover the project.

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