My Headache And Nasal Drip Are Gone!

This morning I followed-up on plans to observe a talented and gifted program in one of our Delaware schools.  It was great seeing the kids interacting with their teacher.  I arrived at Pulaski Elementary School at about 9:45am and stayed until shortly before noon.  I got a tour of the building.  I haven’t been in too many inner-city schools that are older, so it was great to see the design of the building and the different levels.

About fifteen minutes after arrival, I developed a nasal drip.  Which was very strange because I wasn’t congested prior to getting there.  About ten minutes later I began to have a headache.  I ate a full breakfast this morning and took my vitamins.  Most headaches I get require me to take some type of medicine like Motrin or Tylenol.  Alas, I didn’t have any with me.  The headache went away about 45 minutes after I left Pulaski.

I saw the rooms where the mold remediation took place.  They were sealed off with plastic zipper doors, like what we saw in E.T. back in 1982.  I asked if the carpeting was the same in the one room to which my guide said yes.  Other areas that were not remediated had a musty, damp kind of smell.  Not the whole building, but areas near the remediated rooms and above them.  Even the front office had a peculiar smell.

I met the principal.  A very nice woman.  I met quite a few teachers, most of them in passing.  All were very polite and doing what they do best, teaching kids.  There were a few times I had to ask my guide to repeat herself.  Unfortunately, under doctor orders, she had to wear an air filter mask because of lingering health issues.

By the way, the Christina Board of Education will meet tonight at the Sarah Pyle Academy in Wilmington.  The meeting opens to the public at 7pm and public comment is always welcome.  I know they will be discussing the mold issues as well as the charter school lawsuit against them and the Delaware Dept. of Education.  Last night, the board held an Executive Meeting to discuss the litigation.  I anticipate a very large crowd in attendance this evening, so you may want to think about arriving early.  Meanwhile, the Delaware Division of Public Health is set to release a report on their walk-through of the school last Friday.

 

School-Based Health Centers Proposal May Collide With Parental Authority… This Is A Game Changer In Schools!

I’ve heard constant echoes of one thing over the past year: we need more supports in our schools for our high-needs students.  But what happens when that call is heard but we may get far more than we ever bargained for?  What if the services provided become very invasive in scope?

The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) put out a request for proposal (RFP) for all nineteen school districts in Delaware and the thirty-two high schools within them.  The goal of the vendor contracts would be to increase the role of wellness centers in schools.  The funding was already put in place in the FY2017 budget.  A few high schools wouldn’t begin these kind of contracts until FY2018 because they didn’t already have existing wellness centers in the schools.

I have grave concerns with how much DHSS wants to happen in our high schools.  I understand why the bid for this is coming out of DHSS, but this is an education matter.  I fully understand that some students may not have access to medical treatment so I am not explicitly against these types of centers in high-needs schools.  But the amount of private student data involved is astounding.  Under HIPAA, that is merely a consent for information to go out from a health provider to another entity.  Parents need to understand exactly what they are signing consent for.  Where this gets confusing is the differentiation between HIPAA and FERPA.  FERPA only applies to educational records.  The data from these health centers in our high schools would not fall under FERPA.  Or at least they shouldn’t.

There are several terms in the above picture that worry me.  “Prevention-oriented multidisciplinary health care”… I’m all for prevention, but prevention against what?  Where is the line drawn?  What if one of these multidisciplinary measures goes against a student’s religion?  What if the student is not aware of that but a parent becomes upset when they find out?  “Integration with primary care”… what does that even mean?  Integration would mean a data system cross-referencing the health information between a primary physician and the school-based health provider.  Does that information flow both ways?  Serious data privacy concerns here folks!

“The delivery of medical and mental health services”… If a student needs immediate treatment, is a school even equipped to act as a triage type unit?  Is that the eventual goal here?  In terms of mental health services, I have long thought it was a good idea for school districts to have psychiatrists or neurologists on hand for IEP meetings.  All too often, psychologists are used to determine “behavior” issues but a psychiatrist or neurologist would be able to give more explanation of what is going on neurologically when a student manifests disabilities.  A psychologist can’t prescribe medicine and as a result, they may not have up to date knowledge of what different medicines do and how they metabolize with the human body.

Students come into our schools with trauma.  Of that, no one seems to be in disagreement.  If families aren’t able to provide students with safe and supportive environments at home, then the school setting would be ideal for students to get the help they need to deal with those issues.  But my concern is this becoming available for ALL students eventually.  All too often parents are denied health information about their child on certain things when it comes to the existing wellness centers.  With this program increasing in scope like this, I can picture that becoming a much bigger issue.

In private practices, these types of services are not cheap.  But that is where the best in their fields tend to go.  With this plan, how many would leave existing private practices to come work in schools?  Not too many I am afraid.  As a result, we would most likely get younger, fresh out of college mental health providers without the experience.  They would get paid less and as a result an inequity would develop between students who come from stable and wealthier home environments and those who come from low-income or poverty families.  Those who come from the stable homes would most likely continue to go to private practices.

DPH is the Division of Public Health.  They would provide partial funding for this project.  But what happens when the project becomes mainstream?  All too often, our school districts become the financial bearer of state mandated programs.  Yes, the funding exists now, but what happens when it isn’t available?  Do they cut these programs out of schools entirely or do local school districts bear the financial burden for paying for these programs?

My first question: what is the School-Community Health of Michigan entity that appears to house school-based health information?  How secure is this data?  If one of the vendors chooses to implement the two years to develop their plan for data reporting, how safe is that data in the meantime?  Should all student risk assessments be standardized?  I would think students with disabilities, those coming from broken homes, or those dealing with poverty would tend to fall lower on a standardized scale as opposed to their peers.

I don’t mind a culture of health.  Lord knows we can be healthier in this country.  But when I see “How youth and parents would be involved in the “planning, operation, and promotion of the SBHC,” that seems like a lot of emphasis put on parents.  If these services are for high-needs students whose parents aren’t big on family engagement, this would result in parents of regular students doing the pushing for these programs.  Will they want to do that if it isn’t for their own child?  “Potential partners and key stakeholders”… as defined by who?  And as we all know, data flows to “partners” quite a bit with education records.  Would parents be given consent forms to send their child’s medical data to entities who really don’t need that information at all?  It mentions HIPAA here, but this is a very slippery slope.  I need a lot more information here.  What is a “diversified funding base”?  Since, invariably, all of this would be paid for by the taxpayers of Delaware, will they really want to pay for other students health services?  We already do, to some extent, but this would increase those costs.

I’m sorry, but did that really say “if the SBHC intends to be a Title X/family planning provider”?  For those who may not be familiar with Title X, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services describes this program on their website:

Family planning centers offer a broad range of FDA-approved contraceptive methods and related counseling; as well as breast and cervical cancer screening; pregnancy testing and counseling; screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs); HIV testing; and other patient education and referrals.

I hate to even bring this up, but if this could in any way lead to abortions being provided in schools that would cause a nuclear war between parents and schools.  No matter what your views on abortion might be, I would tend to think the school would be the last place anything like that should happen.  For that matter, the various “screenings” allowed under Title X could lead to serious contention as well.  For the “5 performance measures for the basis of evaluation”, based on federal guidance I imagine, does that mean every single school-based health center would be required to perform these five measures?  Chlamydia testing can be done by urine samples for both males and females, but sometimes they are performed for females as vaginal swabs.  I would hope that isn’t the method being proposed in this contract.  With all seriousness, I do know chlamydia is a very serious sexually transmitted disease and among the most common.  I don’t know if school-based health centers currently screen or test for chlamydia.  If anyone has information on this, please let me know.  I reached out to a few people who were shocked this would be included in this.

Once again, my biggest concerns with all this surround student data.  This goes way beyond my concerns with existing student data.  Parents should seek answers for this.  I know I will be!  Please read the entire RFP, seen below.  I need to know your thoughts on this.  This is very big and I don’t feel Delaware citizens are even aware of this going on without our knowledge.  The transparency on something of this scope has obviously not been present.  Please share this with everyone you know in Delaware.  Get feedback from your friends or those in the medial profession.  Is this too much?  I have seen a lot of “futurist” lingo talking about how our schools will become “community schools” in the truest sense of the word based on things like this coming to fruition.  Does the term “the whole child” include aspects that will eventually take authority away from parents when it comes to their children’s health?  How much will parents be able to opt out of these programs?

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Mold Isn’t The Most Dangerous Enemy For The Children Of Pulaski

Jose went to school one day.  His grandma forgot to give him his medicine and he started acting out.  He was sent to the ISS Room.  The In-School Suspension Room.  He liked going there sometimes.  There was stuff he could play with.  They even had a carpet in there.  Not like the cold and hard floor in his regular classroom.  He went into the room and started playing with one of the yoga balls.  He had all this energy he had to get out.  Jose sniffed and smelled something really weird.  Like that time he went to his Uncle’s house.  Jose had gone into the basement to find the basketball.  It smelled like that.  Jose started coughing.  That happened a lot when he went to the ISS Room.  It was the same cough he had when he had to take that test on the computer.  But for some reason they got rid of all those computers.  Jose rolled on the floor with the ball, hacking away.  He wasn’t sure if he needed his inhaler or not.  He couldn’t remember if his grandma brought it to school that day.  Maybe his brother had it.  His chest felt like something was pressing on it.  He started to panic.  As he yelled out, another teacher came running in the room.  She was coughing too.

This is Pulaski Elementary School.  Not now.  Not a few days ago.  But how it was from August 29th until October 7th.  That was the day the students weren’t allowed to go in the basement rooms where all the computers were.  Or rooms 10 or 11.  The teachers believed the district when they said it was okay.  Even though a few of them went to the emergency room.  But what the district didn’t tell the staff, students, or parents was how dangerous it was there.  On August 29th, Pulaski was tested for air quality.  With these tests, they compare the air outside with the air inside.  Inside, Pulaski was 55,000 times greater with mold than it was outside.  The district did tell the teachers… six weeks later.  Students took tests on the computers.  Special education students went to one of the three therapists down there.  For six weeks, everyone was breathing contaminated air.

Yesterday, Acting Superintendent Dr. Robert Andrzejewski gave a press brief at Pulaski.  A reporter asked him if he would send his kids or grandchildren there.  He said yes.  But the reporter asked the wrong question.  She should have asked him if he would have sent them there three weeks ago.  I’m willing to bet his answer would have been much different.  So why didn’t this come out in the News Journal or WDEL?  They simply weren’t given the true situation.  The mold, as Dr. A explained, came from a busted water main.

By the time the school had an air quality test on August 29th, the custodians were told to clean it up.  Armed with nothing but rags and Clorox, they wiped it down.  Hispanic custodians, without gloves or air masks.  Who couldn’t speak English very well.  Perhaps Ed Mayfield, the Assistant to the Superintendent and the Director of Operations, thought the problem would go away soon.  Maybe he didn’t understand the danger.  But the bottom line is he saw the reports and did nothing.  Sure, he may have attempted to clean it up.  But he did not inform the school.  Not the Principal or the staff.  For six weeks.

When the teachers were told about the situation, it was after the Christina Board of Education held a special meeting on the issue.  That was on October 4th.  Mayfield was addressing the staff on October 7th at the school.  At the board meeting a few days before, one of the board members came down from the podium and handed the air quality reports to a staff member of Pulaski.  This staff member had requested this information for weeks.  The board member warned Mayfield about any retaliation to the staff.  Apparently that warning went unheeded.  Veiled threats came out.  The teachers were told if they went to the press it would be a violation of their contract.  Because when teachers signed their contracts with the Christina School District, part of that states they will not put the district in a negative light at all.  Sure, they could have talked to the press.  They also would have lost their job.  It was an impossible situation.

So here we are now.  October 15th.  The staff at Pulaski have been told the mold levels are down.  The Department of Health did a walk-thru yesterday.  All is right with the world.  But the Computer Lab, Room 10, and Room 11 are still closed.  Dehumidifiers are running in those rooms after a mold specialist came in to clean it up.  The origin of the mold was apparently found.  At least that’s what Dr. A is telling all of us.  But Dr. A will most likely be leaving the district soon.  He is only an Acting Superintendent.  The Board’s aim is to have a new Superintendent by January 1st.  Dr. A came in to help Christina win their referendum.  He succeeded on that part.  For the most part though, he hasn’t done a whole heck of a lot.  Most of the day-to-day stuff has been handled by Mayfield.  That doesn’t mean Dr. A wasn’t well aware of the situation at Pulaski.  Dr. A didn’t attend the special board meeting on October 4th.  Dr. A is also on a very short list for the next Delaware Secretary of Education if John Carney becomes the next Governor.

The Christina Board isn’t done with this issue.  It will be part of their next board meeting on October 18th, this coming Tuesday.  At their meeting on October 4th, board members wanted answers to questions about this.  They wanted to know what happened and when.  How much the mold remediation would cost the district.  Things like that.

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They wanted to know what the next steps are after the clean-up…

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Dr. A will talk about the district’s procedures for handling Indoor Air Quality issues….

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But the board, upon hearing other teachers in the district making similar complaints as Pulaski, will review a resolution to have all the schools in the district tested.

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At the October 4th board meeting, Ed Mayfield was offered $25,000 on the spot if he would fully test all the rooms at Pulaski.  All forty or so rooms.  He refused.  Mayfield knew it would cost around $500 to test each room for mold.  But he seemed very confident the situation would soon be gone.  Why burden the district with an expense they probably didn’t need to incur.  The 300 plus students and all those staff members would be okay.  They were taking care of it.  It’s not like they knew how bad it was, but they got those levels down thank goodness!  And even if they did know, they couldn’t talk about it.  Forget that it was a health crisis.  Forget some staff members had to go to the emergency room, one by ambulance.  They probably had pre-existing conditions anyways.  Even though he had been with the district for a long time, this was nothing compared to his time as a detective with the Delaware State Police.

Intimidation.

Retaliation.

Endangerment.

Suppression.

Contamination.

Children.

Teachers.

Staff.

I’ve seen a lot in Delaware education.  I’ve written about many things.  Never, in the almost 3,000 articles I’ve written in less than 2 1/2 years, have I been more disgusted and horrified at the same time.  Teachers knew.  They knew something wasn’t right.  They begged the district to do something.  The district knew how bad it was and did nothing until the board intervened.  We still don’t know if the building is completely safe.  They only treated the basement.  There are two floors above that.  Mold travels through the air.  They can be smaller than a micron.  It’s everywhere.  But at high levels, it can cause headaches, breathing problems, and memory loss.

The Pulaski Kennel Cough.  The cough that didn’t start this school year.  It started three years ago.  During another time when the computer lab was closed for many months.

Mr. Mayfield and Dr. Andrzejewski, it is not in the district’s best interest to force teachers to sign gag orders where they can’t talk about a health crisis that has the potential to do harm to the students and staff that the district is entrusted to protect.  Especially when the two of you failed to act as soon as you knew the danger at Pulaski Elementary School.  There is nothing you can do or say to justify that.  You put children in harms way.  The very kids you have been charged to educate.  The special needs children.  The English Language learners.  The poor.  The discriminated.  The ones you forgot about in your neglectful decisions.  Shame on you.  If anyone broke their contract, it is the two of you.  You put Christina in a negative light.

If you are concerned about numbers, try these on for size.

52.8% Hispanic/Latino

40% African-American

16.3% Special Education

29.3% English Language learners

76% Low-Income

These are the numbers you should have been looking at.  These vulnerable kids.  Betrayed by those who are supposed to put them first.  And one of you wants to be Secretary of Education?  How can we expect to trust you with 135,000 kids when you couldn’t provide safety for 300 of them?

Update On The Christina Mold Crisis

Within two days after I broke the story about the Pulaski Kennel Cough, WDEL and The News Journal jumped on the story.  The quid pro quo in Delaware media doesn’t seem to apply for the “mainstream” journalists who pick up news from the bloggers.  I always link to their information, but apparently that fair play doesn’t go both ways, but I digress.

This morning, the Delaware Division of Public Health is performing a walk-through at Pulaski Elementary School.  This will be followed by a 12 noon press conference at Pulaski with Christina Acting Superintendent Bob Andrzejewski, Wilmington 6th District City Councilwoman Sherry Dorsey-Walker, and a representative from the Delaware ’87ers.  The purpose of the press conference will be to discuss the mold issue in the school.

For those who are downplaying this issue, it is VERY serious.  And I am just putting this out there again… NO TEACHER WILL BE IN ANY WAY PENALIZED OR HAVE RAMIFICATIONS FOR TALKING ABOUT THESE ISSUES.  I will expose it more than I just did on the Susan Monday show on WDEL this morning.  Don’t even think I’m kidding!  This doesn’t just apply to Pulaski or Christina, but any Delaware school.  If you wish to remain anonymous, I will protect that right.  My email is kevino3670@yahoo.com if you want to talk or send pictures.  These teachers speaking out about these issues are heroes and deserve whistleblower protection.  They are sticking their necks out to reveal this information and if anyone gets ready to sharpen the axe, think twice…