At Thursday evening’s public hearing on the superintendent’s proposed budget for the 2014-15 school year, Board of Education chairman Bruce Likly started the meeting by with an unscheduled agenda change, asking the schools’ chief, Dr. Gary Richards, to update the public and the board about Indoor Air Quality issues that have recently been raised in the press, including GOOD Morning Wilton. 

Richards reiterated his confidence in the status of the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) at Miller-Driscoll. He said he hoped to be able to update the public with a date on the radon retesting as well as with identifying the candidates to perform an overall review and analysis of IAQ “by the end of next week.”

“Based on the available information we have at this time, our school IAQ is safe, and I want to reassure the Board and the community that as superintendent, I take this responsibility very seriously and want to make sure the information that we provide relative to our IAQ is reliable. For this reason there will be a review of the available information by our outside testing firm as well as further testing.”

Richards again said that there will be radon retesting at Miller-Driscoll, and also addressed some of the fresh air concerns. 

“We are hopeful that we will be able to announce a date for the radon retesting by ATC or one of its agents next week. A second point, Mark Esposito, our terrific HVAC technician, has spent a great deal of time at Miller-Driscoll over the past several weeks, and plans to be there hopefully on  a daily basis, at some point every day to keep monitoring our ventilation equipment and to make adjustments as needed. I would point out that he is only one, we have only one HVAC technician in the district, and we have 750,000 sq. ft. of building. He has responsibilities throughout the district; as you might imagine, it’s quite a challenge in this polar vortex world we seem to live in to make sure that the heating equipment is working properly during this unseasonably frigid season.”

The superintendent also updated the board on the status of implementing “Tools for Schools,” a federal EPA program that the district did not maintain compliance with until now.

“Yesterday, we restarted the Tools for Schools program with a training session, that took place for the  committees for each school’s TFS committee.” Likly asked Richards about community involvement on the committee, and the superintendent confirmed that there are parents who serve on each committee, calling them “equal, active members who have gone through the training, and are part of the inspections and part of formulating recommendations for possible action.”

He added that there are teachers, head custodians and school nurses from each school who serve on the committees as well, and even students at Wilton High School and Middlebrook.

The final component of the superintendent’s plan involves bringing in an independent hygienist to review the overall air quality status at Miller-Driscoll.

“The school district will be hiring an independent, third-party hygienist. This firm will have no connection to the administration or the board, and will be charged with reviewing information from earlier testing; conducting thorough indoor air quality testing at the Miller-Driscoll school; and providing recommendation for further action, if needed. Our intent is to see that this review gets underway within the next few weeks, and once the review and testing gets completed the results will be shared with the community,” Richards said.

Likly asked Richards about whether the results, once testing and retesting is completed, would be presented to the public; the superintendent confirmed that it would. “Yes, absolutely.” 

Richards did refer again to a document posted on the school website, that originated with the state department of public health, regarding testing. “It says IAQ testing should not be the first move. I think what it speaks to, it talks to the fact that there are no standards for IAQ, there are numbers that get thrown around but they are not hard and fast standards. What the state has said with regard to indoor ventilation guidelines are just that–they are guidelines. They are not the absolutes that some have spoken about.”

He added, “What’s a challenge is test interpreting, and interpreting the results of whatever testing is done. Results may add little information if they are misunderstood. It’s important to try not to make people feel that we are not giving inaccurate information.”

As part of the overall budget presentation that followed, Richards explained that he had budgeted $50,000 for review, repair and maintenance of Miller-Driscoll air quality issues in the 2014-15 budget. 

Richards promised to update board members further at the next BoE meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 6.

GOOD Morning Wilton will have a complete report on the budget presentation on Monday, Jan. 27.