Westwood Elementary, which enrolled 464 students last school year, will return to class Monday, Aug. 24, after the Friendswood campus passed all environmental air quality tests following a mold remediation that delayed the start of school by six days.

Teachers and staff can re-enter the building Wednesday, Aug. 19, to set up classrooms. Parents and guardians will be allowed to walk their children to class on the first day back.

The bigger calendar question: Friendswood ISD plans to ask its Board of Trustees on Aug. 24 for authorization to apply to the Texas Education Agency for a two-day waiver. Students missed four instructional days while the rest of the district started school Tuesday, Aug. 18. The district's existing calendar contains enough instructional minutes to cover two of those days, but the remaining two require state approval to avoid make-up days.

If TEA grants the waiver, Westwood families would not have to add days to the school year.

Friendswood ISD announced Friday, Aug. 14, that it received verbal confirmation all 26 tested areas on campus met air quality standards, according to KGTX 7 News. The district had expanded testing from an initial 14 areas to 26 before giving the all-clear. As we reported Aug. 9, the district had been targeting Aug. 24 for reopening as cleanup continued.

All 26 areas passed.

The root cause traced to the school's HVAC system. Portions were not adequately controlling moisture, and moisture from part of the HVAC had saturated sections of the roof deck and infiltrated parts of the building. Summer testing found elevated mold in air and surface samples, though no black mold was identified.

In an Aug. 5 letter to parents, the district acknowledged the problem directly: "We recognize that our community expects us to provide safe learning environments for every child, and we acknowledge that in this instance, we fell short of that expectation."

Corrective repairs, enhanced monitoring and preventive measures will continue after the campus reopens, according to district officials. Kinder Camp and Meet the Teacher events, previously postponed, will not be rescheduled. Instead, Westwood teachers visited students at their homes individually before the start of school.

A final written environmental report has not yet been released. Friendswood ISD will post the report for public review on the Westwood Elementary website once received, along with July testing results and information about air scrubbers used at the school.

The Board of Trustees vote on the TEA waiver authorization is scheduled for Aug. 24, the same day students return.