Bids Due By Friday On Collins School Mold Removal, Parents Told

The auditorium at the Russell O Brackman Middle School was filled with parents, quiet and calm as they listened first to the principal, then the PTA president and the superintendent of schools address them and welcome them to the new school year on Wednesday night.

When the final greetings were completed, the parents headed out of the auditorium and dispersed to check out their children’s classrooms. Some of them, however, had to drive to the Lillian M. Dunfee School; some to the Joseph T. Donahue School and others still to the Robert L. Horbelt School.  

That’s because these were the parents of Cecil S. Collins Elementary School, whose 300-some children were displaced from the school when mold was discovered in several classrooms just days before the 2011-2012 school year was set to begin.

“While we are not at home, we are still a family,” principal George Delaporte said, a sentiment shared by many.

“I know you’re displaced,” schools superintendent Karen Wood said. “I’m glad to see so many of you here.”

Wood told the audience that the school district is working as quickly as possible to get the mold and the factors that contributed to it – a leaky roof and a heating and air conditioning system that is inadequate – addressed. The Collins school is the only one in the district that lacks a total HVAC system -- which is the only thing that will remove moisture from the air, thus preventing mold from growing.

Wood said the district would have the bids on the project in by the end of this week and that she hoped the Board of Education would be able to make a decision on those bids within a short time.

“The most important thing is keeping your children safe and in a healthy atmosphere,” she said.

“In the bid specifications they have to give us a projection of how long they believe it will take to do the work,” Wood said after the parents’ meeting. She had expected some questions Wednesday evening, but noted that the forum the district held specifically to address questions about the Collins mold situation seemed to have answered most of them for the short-term.

“Even at the school board meeting last night it was fairly quiet,” she said.

The biggest challenge has been the logistics of transportation, Wood said, but most of those issues have been resolved.

What has made the situation somewhat easier, she said, has been the willingness of everyone – the staff, the parents and the community – to pull together to make things work as best as possible for the students.

“I’ve never been anywhere like this,” said Wood, who lives in Lacey and worked in the West Long Branch schools. “The staff here (in Barnegat) has worked above and beyond to make this work. They’ve done whatever needs to be done.”

Kim Murphy, president of the Parent Teacher Assocation at Collins, said the other schools’ PTA have been very helpful and supportive as well, allowing Collins students to participate in their PTA activities including the annual fall book fair.

And the district has worked with them to help them maintain an identity and a presence; the Brackman school will be used for the Collins’ PTA’s nighttime events, which Murphy and the rest of the board hope will bring even greater participation from the parents.

“We took our job as maintaining the normalcy,” Murphy said, noting the PTA sent in pretzels as snacks for the students during the first week of school, as they’ve always done, as well as a few other traditions.

“It helps that each PTA board member has a child in a different school,” said Danielle Donlan, whose second-grade son is with the children who’ve been sent to the Donahue school. “We’ve become the liaison” between the Collins PTA and the other schools.

The biggest concern, Murphy said, is fundraising. The school’s book fair – traditionally an event that gives PTAs a good boost – was set up on stage in the Brackman auditorium, and the parents whose children were being taught at Brackman stayed and perused the shelves for a while before heading off to the classrooms.

“We hope people will be even more supportive than usual,” she said, “because lots of things will have to be replaced.”

Not only will the teachers need assistance replacing items in their classrooms (and PTAs frequently help with the purchase of all sorts of educational supplies, everything from crayons for kindergartners) but the PTA will have to replace much of its inventory of items, such as its hospitality supplies.

Murphy said that at first the PTA was being asked a lot of questions about the mold situation, “because parents thought we knew more than they did. But now they’ve realized even the school officials don’t know a whole lot more.

If you are interested in joining the PTA at the Cecil S. Collins School, the meetings are held at 7 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month at the Russell O. Brackman School. Babysitting is provided for parents who need it. Delaporte frequently attends the PTA meetings, Murphy said.

“The mold remediation session was like pitchforks,” Murphy said, but noted that things have calmed down.

“I know that won’t last forever,” Wood said, “but we don’t want it to last forever.”