by Marissa Borja, KUAM News Wednesday, December 22, 2004 E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

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Officials have already identified that moisture is the cause of mold at Southern High School. And they even know the answer, which is to install, maintain and ensure air conditioning units are functioning. Yet the Department of Education still can't guarantee that the problem will be resolved by the time students return from Christmas break.

After deciding that the next step in addressing the outbreak of mold at Southern High in Santa Rita would be to conduct an air quality assessment, DOE officials say they've been informed by the Guam Environmental Protection Agency and the department of Public Health to do otherwise. Said DOE spokesperson Gerry Cruz, "We were advised as of the meeting Friday it wouldn't be feasible to conduct an air quality test simply because there are no standards to base those results on either here on Guam or nationally."

Instead of using funds for testing, doe will now redirect the money toward cleanup efforts by mobilizing maintenance and staff to scrub down the walls. And while the solution appears to be as simple as installing new air conditioning units, Cruz says that there are no guarantees that students and teachers will return after the Christmas break to find that the problem has completely been resolved. "We can't guarantee exactly what date we'll have it in but as soon as the first or second week of January," added Cruz.

The status of the installation of the new units, Cruz says, is they are expected to be on-island as of today. In the meantime, the vendor has already poured the concrete foundation to put the packages in and is ready to do the installation. But for anxious parents and students awaiting a final answer on the fate of whether Southern High School will indeed resort to double-session in order to address the problem, Cruz could not confirm what the Department plans to do.

He continued, "After tomorrow's meeting hopefully we can see if we have to move off the campus or can we hold double sessions right there if we even have to do double sessions because until we can found out how long and how much money's going to be required for this project - we won't know what kind of plans we're going to come up with."

The meeting will be held in the boardroom at DOE Central Thursday at 9am.