SE Portland elementary school warns parents of potentially hazardous fungi

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - A few classrooms in a southeast Portland elementary school were closed off on Friday following an email from Portland Public Schools to staff and parents.

The email told them a test yielded evidence of potentially hazardous fungi contaminating some learning spaces.

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David Scholten, a 5th grade teacher at Creston Elementary, said the issue has been long standing, dating back to last July.

“There has been six months to deal with this issue and then another two months of teachers telling PPS that this needs to be taken of, and they weren’t believed,” Scholten said.

The evidence of potentially dangerous and hazardous fungal spores were predominantly found in several classrooms for young students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

However, he said there are other areas in the school that appear to have similar atmospheres to the classrooms that were closed off.

“What we’re concerned about right now is that all the students in the school are being exposed to these same unhealthy conditions,” he said.

Scholten said this all began when custodial staff put in a work order last July when they noticed tiles containing asbestos were warping in the cafeteria.

“They were concerned that if those tiles broke, students would be exposed to the asbestos,” Scholten said.

He said the work order was never followed up on.

PPS said in their email a half-year later that a pipe had been leaking steam which caused three classrooms to be shuttered.

Scholten said staff in those classrooms complained in December that they, and their students, were suffering from itchy eyes, headaches and the rooms had a strong musty smell.

“They have been exposed to this for at least two months at extremely unhealthy levels,” the teacher said.

“We all want PSS to test our school, because some classrooms aren’t being tested when they should have been.”

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“It’s their school as much as anybody’s.”

PPS said they’re going to start making up a plan to conduct more tests next week, but Scholten and a long list of other educators at the school call that “unacceptable,” because they said right now they don’t know if what they’re breathing is healthy.

Scholten wrote a letter the entire staff at the school signed off on asking PPS to streamline the process and remedy the potential hazard as quickly as possible.