SALAMANCA, N.Y. — As many local school districts prepare to welcome students back to class this week, one elementary school in Salamanca will have a delayed start.
The Salamanca City Central School District posted on its official Facebook page Monday that the Prospect Elementary School will not be open on Wednesday, September 1 to accept students due to an "environmental impact."
Last week the school district says it discovered what they suspected to be mold and called in Stohl Environmental to do testing. The test results came back Monday indicating positive levels for "Aspergillus/Penicillium."
While the school was waiting for the test results, the district says the school's building and grounds personnel cleaned the impacted areas. Now a professional remediation service has been hired to immediately conduct a professional cleaning of the building.
At this time, students and staff are being told not to go to Prospect Elementary School on Wednesday. The district also notes that lunches will be available for students on Wednesday, for outdoor delivery only, at the elementary school from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Tuesday afternoon, District Superintendent Robert Breidenstein provided families with the following update:
Dear Prospect Families & Staff,
I want to provide an update on the cleaning/remediation progress at Prospect Elementary School. Metro Environmental is on site and has begun remediation/cleaning protocols. We have deployed dehumidifiers in multiple rooms as well as numerous sensors to monitor humidity and temperature in classrooms. The good news is the humidity levels have dramatically decreased. Unfortunately, I do not anticipate that the cleaning/remediation will be completed in time to allow us to resume in-person instruction for students on Thursday, 9/2.
I will make this decision tomorrow morning by 10 am but wanted to alert parents of the high degree of probability that Prospect will remain closed on Thursday. I want to thank our Prospect Office staff, our B&G staff and our new food service crew for their monumental efforts in the most trying of times.
"We apologize for this schedule change, but the health and safety of children and staff must continue to be a priority. We will keep families and staff apprised of the professional remediation crew’s progress," the Salamanca City Central School District said in the Facebook post.
