Elm Street Elementary closes

Elm Street Elementary School in Summerside, P.E.I., will be closed for the next two weeks.

School officials sent home a note on Friday saying the building will be closed while air quality testing is done. Mould has been found in the school.

"Following a discussion with the chief health officer and environmental health, we have decided to do an extensive remediation and clean-up of the affected rooms," Dale Sabean, superintendent of the Western School Board, said in a release.

"As well, we will continue consultation with an environmental specialist on doing further testing for mould or investigating for other possible causes of these symptoms."

Sabean said students will notbe attending classes elsewhere over the next two weeks.

A parents meeting is scheduled for Monday night at Athena Consolidated school.

Dr. Mitch Zelman, P.E.I.'s deputy chief health officer, said he recommended the school be closed after lab tests showed mould in several places in the school.

Dozens of staff and students have complained of allergic type symptoms over the past few weeks, Zelman said. His office received results of recent mould tests Friday morning.

Zelman said he believes there's a good possibility the symptoms the students and staff have been experiencing such as itchy eyes, rashes, sores on their tongues, and breathing difficulties are linked to the mould.

"And what we noticed was that the mould tests, they were not acutely toxic, but they were very worrisome," he said. "And they were very worrisome in that it was a type of mould that really likes water kind of environments, which showed us that it was a significant water issue in much of the school."

Zelman said there is also asbestos in the school, which could become a problem if work were to be done to remove the mould.

The school board is looking for alternative classroom spaces for the more than 500 students and staff in the Summerside area, in case the closure lasts for more than two weeks, Sabean said.

"The two week window, if you like, is really to give us time to make arrangements for a plan B, a plan that would see us accommodate the students and staff in another area, another building, another school," he said. "We'll need two weeks to get those logistics in place."

Sabean said they will try to find a solution as quickly as possible.

"We understand the impact this will have on our families," he said.

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Developmentis working closely with the school board to find the cause and a solution to the air quality issues at the school.

Last week, Sabean said a small amount of mould was found on one of the school's walls. That part of the wall has since been removed and rebuilt.

The school, which was built in 1960, has 450 students from kindergarten to Grade 6.