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Carbon dioxide, mold cause concern at Corona del Sol
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The Tempe Union High School District is pressing the state to pay for new heating and air conditioning at one of its schools, saying malfunctioning equipment, dripping mold and high carbon dioxide levels could be making people sick.
District studies and consultant reports presented to state officials last week show that Corona del Sol High School is plagued by smelly classrooms, mold and high levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
The district wants the state School Facilities Board to pay the $17 million cost of renovations.
The board rejected emergency funding for the project earlier this year while acknowledging problems including high carbon dioxide levels.
The Tempe district is now threatening to join a lawsuit against the state if it doesn’t get the money.
School officials have said little about the reports publicly.
Pressed on Thursday, they said they don’t believe the buildings make people sick.
“To be very clear — if there had been things causing our people to be ill or causing disease or those kinds of things, we wouldn’t even have the school even open,” Tempe Union High School district Superintendent Steve Adolph said.
Tests done by the state in 2001 showed the air passed muster, but they were conducted early in the day before students arrived.
Some school workers believe the bad air may be responsible for what they call a cancer cluster among employees.
“It’s a well-known fact that there have been years of concerns at that school, and we talked about the unhealthy environment every year,” said Barb Carter, a former Corona special-education teacher who was diagnosed with a brain tumor this year.
She said she knows of eight other instructors who spent years teaching at Corona who have had benign brain tumors or other forms of cancer.
David Schapira, a state representative from Tempe and member of the House K-12 education committee, said Corona’s problems were indicative of a larger issue that legislators need to address.
“The School Facilities Board and the district, neither one has the resources, apparently, to solve the problem at this time,” Schapira said.
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