Some Granite City students had an extra 3 weeks of vacation. How will the time be made up?
Granite City High School students will begin their school year Friday, weeks after they were originally planned to return to the classroom.
Community School Unit District 9 announced the high school would welcome students for classes Friday and have a freshman walk through Thursday after weeks of environmental air testing due to problems caused by summer construction projects and flooding issues.
Teachers will return to high school tomorrow. High school students will return from their break 25 days after the scheduled start of the fall term.
All other grades below the high school level started school Monday, Aug. 26.
Granite City School District Superintendent Jim Greenwald said the scientists who tested the school’s air quality reported that the school’s air is “as clean as it could possibly be” after extended tests and cleaning took place on the upper and lower floors of the high school.
“Everything upstairs and downstairs has been tested and levels are well below any type of OSHA concerns,” he said.
Over the summer, construction on the second floor of the high school took place to repair a ceiling that had collapsed. However, after the construction was finished no environmental air testing was done in the building. Greenwald said the studies should have been done immediately following the renovation of a classroom.
Greenwald said the district needed to clean both the upstairs and downstairs of the high school to ensure there was no contamination. On Wednesday, a secretary at the school said that work was ongoing.
In August, Greenwald sent a letter to the district staff asking them to see their primary care physicians if they were having any concerns about exposure to the contaminant. Greenwald told the Belleville News-Democrat the message was purely precautionary and that scientists testing the air of the building said it would be extremely rare for anyone not “completely immersed” in the contaminants to become ill.
“There is no one that could possibly be in harm’s way if they were in the lower levels of our buildings for summer school, whether they are a teacher or a student or anyone coming in, based upon the work that was being done upstairs,” he said in August. “You’d have to be in a situation where you were immersed in this stuff.”
Those contaminants included silica, quartz and other contaminants that come with working with plaster and ceiling tiles. He said asbestos was not a concern.
School was originally canceled due to rain damage occurred last week when a “freak storm” inundated Granite City beginning on Sunday, Aug. 11, and lasting until the early morning hours of Aug. 12. Streets became rivers, homes were flooded and at Granite City High School the rain-damaged floors, the roof and other areas of the school.
Make Up Days
Greenwald said thanks to “creative” work from the district staff, the school year calendar won’t see major changes. As of now, the district will need five make-up days. Greenwald noted the district is applying for “Act of God” days through the state, which covers closures for reasons that are out of the district’s control.
He added that some days originally scheduled as half days or days off for students will now be full days. Parent-teacher conferences, for example, will take place during school days.
Snow days this winter could add a wrinkle to current plans.
Going Forward
To avoid missing days in the future, Greenwald said, the district is forming new policies for air quality testing following construction projects like those done over the summer months. He said it also plans to continue to consult with Environmental Services LLC, the company that tested the school’s air.
He said the air will be “systematically” tested in the future as well.
This story was originally published September 4, 2019 at 4:12 PM.