St. Charles Illinois School shuts down:

Moldy Schools
Are Your Kids Getting Sick at School?
By Michele Norris
ABCNEWS.com
December 30, 2002

S T. C H A R L E S, Ill., April 18 — On any given school day in this northern Illinois town, you can find students hanging out at the mall. But they're not skipping school.

They're actually banned from school because St. Charles' high school, like hundreds of other schools around the country, is infested with toxic mold — millions of tiny spores that, when inhaled, can trigger a range of allergic reactions. Allergist Dr. John Santilli says symptoms include pounding headaches, a fever and chills. And doctors say children are most at risk because their lungs are still developing.

"We have a huge public health problem that really has to be investigated," says Santilli.

The reason mold growth has reached dangerous levels in so many schools comes down to poor maintenance. Schools have failed to fix leaky roofs or have taken too much time to fix water damage caused by floods. Building maintenance has been scaled back due to budget cuts.

"They have to choose between hiring teachers and buying new textbooks for maintaining the buildings," says Clem Mejia, superintendent of the Kane County Regional school district.

Invisible Health Threat

Although St. Charles High School looks perfectly safe, an invisible threat confirms what many in this community long suspected: The building may have been making students sick.

"I'd get migraines all the time," recalls student Ashley Hard, 17. "I was dizzy; I fainted a few times in school."

Hard was a top student and talented athlete. Now respiratory problems have forced her to give up sports and miss so much school that she failed two classes.

"I'm a single parent and she's been very sick," says her mother, Marsha Hard, amid tears. "I think what upsets me the most is that I'd talk to the school and no one would listen to me."

Health problems associated with toxic mold have prompted dozens of schools to close their doors, forcing students to miss weeks of class.

"There are no standards for molds," says one St. Charles parent, Cathy Villwock, whose son developed respiratory problems. "We have regulatory guidelines set for lead, asbestos and radon. Now if we had any of the above, we would have been closed down."

But because there aren't regulatory guidelines on these molds, the school wasn't shut down when it was first detected.

"We're angry, especially when you are battling this for years and years. This just didn't appear yesterday," she says. "This is a national crisis in our public schools."

And it's a crisis with a big price tag. Cleanup can cost millions, as schools remove ceiling tiles and rip out walls — battling a menace that you can't always see.

By Paul Brinkmann
Press-Gazette Door County bureau pbrinkma@greenbaypressgazette.com

STURGEON BAY — Two Door County landlords virtually walked away from a civil lawsuit Thursday that sought to pin blame on them for a 2001 mold infestation at their Baileys Harbor apartment complex.

Landlords Robert Doneff and Richard Langdon were not only exonerated — the 12-person jury also found that the apartment residents who filed the suit were negligent with respect to their own personal property.

“This verdict was a total nullification of the plaintiffs claims,” said defense attorney David Weber of Sturgeon Bay. “The plaintiffs’ own expert testified that only two or three people out of 100 are allergic to mold, and yet 90 percent of this buildings’ occupants claimed illness from it.”

The case pitted Weber against attorney Michael Duffy of Chicago, who became well-known after winning a big judgment in a similar case in Texas. Since then more research has been done on mold that shows only some of the populace is affected, Weber said.

The only award made in the case was ordering the landlords to return a $610 rental deposit to plaintiff Aaron Bacigalupo.

“I’m extremely disappointed and we’re all shocked,” plaintiff Kathy Ferrell said. “This apparently means a builder can screw up, do anything they want, and then not get punished.”

The jurors all declined to comment as they left the courthouse. Foreperson Paula Bur did not return a phone message left at her home seeking comment. Attempts to reach Doneff and Langdon were unsuccessful.

Experts in the case testified they found samples of Penicillium and Stachybotrys in mold samples from the apartment. The plaintiffs alleged they experienced severe allergy-like symptoms and that the landlords waited a month after the first complaints to do anything. All but three of them sought $15,000 to $25,000 in pain and suffering damages, as well as reimbursements for lost furniture.

Doneff and Langdon argued they had installed new ventilation in the attic as soon as they realized the problem. Most of the tenants moved out of the building during that period.

Ferrell said she believes the tenants made an impact simply because they drew attention to possible problems caused by mold in Wisconsin.

The jury also found that three other defendants who had been dismissed from the case were not negligent — architecture company Maloney & Associates LLC, Eames Farm Construction Inc. of Egg Harbor and Indiana Insurance Co.