A pesky mold problem is causing the Fayette County School System to replace the carpeting at seven classrooms at Starr’s Mill High School.

But Facilities Director Mike Satterfield wants parents to know the problem is not nearly as bad as a local television station recently portrayed it.

“The nearly 50 inches of rain and high humidity this summer have caused some mold to reappear,” Satterfield said.

About seven weeks ago, Starr’s Mill Principal Sam Sweat called Satterfield to tell him that some mold had started forming in seven classrooms at the school. Additionally, mold was also appearing at the top of the school’s gym. Satterfield immediately called in a company to treat the gym and discovered that while mold had formed, it was not in the dangerous levels.

“They have a system that measures the level of mold. A 0-900 score is low, 900-2,500 is moderate and over 2,500 is high. The highest count we had in the gym was 257,” Satterfield said.

An Atlanta television station had filmed the mold problem at the school, but Satterfield said the report was not completely factual.

“They showed a sheetrock wall and a door that showed mold up the door at three feet. We don’t have sheetrock walls at Starr’s Mill. It looked like they had pulled a file photo from an apartment that could have flooded,” he said.

Satterfield said the school system does treat all reports of mold seriously and said mold has replaced asbestos at the main problem for schools.

The schools system has decided the best way to solved the problem is to replace all the carpet in the schools with tile floors.

“The only carpet in Whitewater High School is in the administrative area and the media center,” he said.

The school system has adopted a schedule for replacing the carpet in schools, and carpet at Starr’s Mill was set to be replaced next summer. Satterfield decided to go ahead and replace the carpet in the seven classrooms this weekend, while students have a long fall break.

login to post comments