Just a week and a half into the school year, students and staff at a local school that serves about 170 homeless students were vacated after concerns about possible mold in school facilities emerged last week.
When asked about the potential mold, officials at the San Diego County Office of Education, which runs the Monarch School in Barrio Logan, wrote that concerns were first raised late Thursday. Officials notified parents that the following day of school was canceled while they worked to figure out where to reroute students.
For the next week at least, students and staff will be working from alternate locations.
The principal of nearby Perkins Elementary, a San Diego Unified school, agreed to provide classroom space for Monarch’s kindergarten through fifth graders. Students in grades 6 through 12 are being bussed to the County Office’s South County Regional Education Center in National City. Families were also given the choice to opt for independent study.
The extent of the mold concerns is still unclear.
While the school is run by the San Diego County Office of Education, the agency leases the school space from the nonprofit Monarch School Project, which owns the facilities. Officials with the San Diego County Office of Education wrote that the nonprofit will be “leading environmental testing, results, and recommendations.”
A statement from Monarch’s grant manager, Roberta Sutton didn’t include many more details, just that students had been relocated “while environmental testing related to air quality is conducted at our school facility” and that the nonprofit would “continue to follow the guidance of qualified environmental experts.”
“The health and safety of our students, families, staff, and community partners remain our highest priority, and this decision was made out of an abundance of caution,” the statement continued. “We remain committed to providing stability, care, and consistency for the students and families we serve throughout this transition.
In a separate statement, officials with SDCOE wrote that the health and safety of students, family and staff is of utmost importance to Monarch School.
“That’s why, as soon as we heard of emerging concerns about possible mold on our campus, we immediately took action,” a press release from the SDCOE reads. “We are grateful to our students, families, and staff for their flexibility, understanding, and ability to pivot quickly during this temporary adjustment.”
Monarch isn’t the first local school whose opening has been marred by mold concerns. Mold was discovered in more than a dozen classrooms in at least two Poway schools, forcing the relocation of more than a thousand students.