While 5,730 Friendswood ISD students walked into classrooms Tuesday, Aug. 18, the 464 children enrolled at Westwood Elementary stayed home, missing the first day of a school year delayed by mold remediation that shut down their campus before it could open.
Their wait ends Monday, Aug. 24.
That same evening, the FISD board of trustees will meet to vote on whether to apply to the Texas Education Agency for a waiver excusing two of the four instructional days Westwood students will have missed.
Air quality cleared
The district announced Aug. 18 that SETX Environmental Inc., a third-party consulting firm, confirmed all 26 tested areas inside the building met air quality standards, according to Community Impact. Staff may return to campus as early as Wednesday, Aug. 19.
As we reported Aug. 17, the campus had been closed since early August after July testing found elevated levels of Penicillium/Aspergillus and Cladosporium mold. No black mold was detected.
Remediation work by Texas General Contractors included removing all interior carpet, installing commercial-grade air scrubbers, demolishing and replacing HVAC units in the kindergarten wing and completing three rounds of floor-to-ceiling antimicrobial cleaning, according to ABC 13.
What caused the problem
Two factors drove the mold growth, the district said in an Aug. 5 letter to parents: the HVAC system could not manage summer moisture levels inside the building, and moisture from part of the system saturated sections of the roof deck and seeped into the structure.
The board of trustees approved emergency remediation measures at its Aug. 5 meeting, authorizing Superintendent Thad Roher to oversee the contracts and expenses needed to restore the campus. The total cost has not been disclosed.
What families need to know
Westwood students return Monday, Aug. 24. Kinder Camp and Meet the Teacher events will not be rescheduled.
The district calendar already contains enough instructional minutes to cover two of the four missed days without adding time. If trustees approve the TEA waiver application at the Aug. 24 board meeting, and TEA grants it, students will not need to make up the remaining two days.
The board of trustees meets the evening of Monday, Aug. 24. That vote is the last step before the district can formally request the waiver from TEA.
