Committee to recommend West Elementary remain closed during next school year in light of elevated radon levels

A subcommittee of the Grand Forks School Board is recommending that West Elementary School remain closed for the next school year, from this August to May 2021, based on concerns over what it considers unacceptable levels of radon discovered in the building.

The School Board’s Finance Committee made the recommendation at its Thursday, April 2, meeting, after hearing new information from Chris Arnold, the school district’s director of buildings and grounds. The board will be asked to consider the recommendation at its next meeting, April 14, Superintendent Terry Brenner said.

The board also will be asked to allow the Facilities Task Force, a group of about 50 community members, to include this new information in its overall planning process and development of a recommendation regarding facilities it will forward to the board. The task force began meeting March 12 and expects to continue meeting intermittently through the end of September.

At West, the cost to fix the radon problem totals about $1 million, Arnold told committee members Thursday.

That cost, when coupled with projected expenditures for remediation of mold and other water issues caused by last fall’s excessive rain, jumps to about $1.5 million, Arnold said.

West, which was part of a district-wide testing program conducted in March, was the only school building with “concerning levels” of radon, Brenner said in a memo sent to West staff and parents after the finance committee meeting.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency ranks indoor radon, a toxic gas, among the most serious environmental health problems facing the nation today, Arnold said. After smoking, it is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S., causing an estimated 21,000 lung cancer deaths a year, he said.

By delaying remediation on West, the school district may be able to recoup some of the cost of water mitigation through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brenner said.

“We just can’t start the work before we have FEMA approval,” he said.

Amanda Walker, a West parent who has advocated publicly for the school to be maintained, said she understands the recommendation.

“I think the fact that, at the moment, they’re looking out for the best interest of the children and their health and safety says a lot,” Walker said. “I mean, it’s an old school, so they’re going to find issues like this. So I don’t think that it’s too much of a big surprise, because they did say that there was a possibility that -- when they were going to be doing the construction to find out what was causing the mold issue -- that bigger problems might arise.”

“It’s sad that (the school) has to be closed because they can’t get the funding right away, especially since there’s so much money sitting in the Legacy Fund in North Dakota,” she said. “I think that’s a fail as a state; I don’t think that it’s a fail on the school board level necessarily.

“But the fact that this came to light and they’re going to figure out how we’re going to repair it, I think, says a lot about our school board, and it’s not just automatically, ‘we’re going to close it and not pursue anything’ helps to kind of keep a light of hope.”

This is the latest development in a series of issues at West in the past seven months or so.

Last fall, the School Board grappled with the question of possibly closing West on the basis of deferred maintenance and low student enrollment.

Later, after unsafe levels of mold were discovered in some areas within the West School building, the school was closed and students and staff were relocated in late February to Discovery Elementary School on Grand Forks' south side. Students were bused, at no charge, from West’s north-end neighborhood to Discovery, where they started classes March 2.

The mold issue is being addressed via remediation, Arnold told the finance committee Thursday, but a plan to prevent future water damage needs to be put into place.

While acknowledging that the closure of the school for the 2020-21 academic year “creates more anxiety and stress regarding the future of West,” Brenner said, the decision to delay opening for another year was made for the protection and safety of students and staff.

West Elementary was built in 1949 and an addition was constructed in 1955, Arnold said. It has undergone only one major renovation project, which occurred after the Flood of 1997, he said.

The School Board Finance Committee includes School Board members Doug Carpenter and Matt Spivey, President Bill Palmiscno and Vice President Amber Flynn; Superintendent Terry Brenner; Scott Berge, school district business manager; Jody Thompson, associate superintendent of elementary education; and Catherine Gillach, assistant superintendent of secondary education.