District: Collins School Mold Free

The environmental company hired to clean up the mold problem at has declared the building mold-free, district officials said this week, and the school could be reopened as soon as January.

Each room in the school has been tested, said Barnegat Schools Superintendent Karen Wood, and no traces of mold remain. TTI Environmental has "greenlighted" the school, she said, and district employees are now continuing the work of reconfiguring and refurnishing the school, she said.

The school was closed after officials , just before school was scheduled to start. The 300-plus students and their teachers were distributed among the district’s three other elementary schools and middle school.

They’re expected to be able to return sometime after the winter holiday, Wood said, but there’s no exact date set. Before that can happen, a good deal of work remains, she said.

“Right now, there’s a reconfiguration of the building going on,” she said. Ceiling tiles, flooring, cabinets and furniture had to be replaced, she said, and walls had to be repainted. Work crews dealt with one section of the school at a time as they were cleaned, she said, “but we’ve still got furniture to install, and tech equipment has to be reconnected. All of these things are what will happen in the next six to eight weeks.”

Wood said the district does not yet have a total cost estimate for the project, which was previously . However, she said, the district is confident that the costs will be covered completely by its existing emergency reserve funds. That means no new tax dollars will be needed to cover the expense, she said.

Wood said the community and administrators, teachers and staff came together in the last few months to make the sometimes difficult redistribution of students work. 

"It was a challenge, absolutely," she said. "But I think they made the best of a bad situation."