Airing Grievances

Teacher complaints suggest more sick buildings

TWO PUBLIC HEARINGS on sick-building syndrome held in December and March may not have attracted many Boston City Hall employees, but they did manage to draw employees from the Boston Public Schools. Testimony by school staffers raises the possibility that facilities throughout the city, not just City Hall, could be making occupants ill.

On March 26, teachers and parents from the Richard J. Murphy Elementary School, in Dorchester, came before the city council’s public-health committee to complain that the 800-student school exhibited "many signs" of sick-building syndrome. Teacher Michael McLaughlin said he and his colleagues, some of whom showed up with posters that read PLEASE HELP US and CURE OUR SICK BUILDING, have documented such ailments as allergic reactions, eye irritations, and sinus infections. According to McLaughlin, more than 60 teachers at the Murphy School suffer from "unexplainable" health conditions. Meanwhile, one parent of a 10-year-old student testified that her son, who had transferred to the Murphy School last September, must transfer out because he’s recently developed what she calls "horrible" illnesses.

Ginny Lane, a veteran teacher from the Oliver H. Perry Elementary School, in South Boston, testified that in September 1998, she moved into a classroom located in the school’s northeast corner, which doesn’t get much sun. The room, she recalls, had a distinct mildew odor. It also had a recurring leak that often flooded the closet. Soon, Lane says, she had trouble breathing. She had back-to-back sinus infections. By the end of the year, she says, she started losing hair. "I would see hair on my clothes, the floor," she recalls. "I was shedding like a dog."

Lane asked to move to another room. But she wasn’t re-assigned for two more years – not until October 2000, after she’d presented school administrators with lab results from Environmental Health Associates, in Cambridge. Lane, determined to prove that mold was, in fact, a problem, had left a leather bag in the classroom’s closet. She took a swatch of the bag to the Boston Teachers Union, which sent it to the lab. Results showed that the bag had been covered with invisible aspergillus, a mold that can be toxic.

Lane moved into another classroom, directly above her old one, but things only got worse for her. During the 2001-’02 academic year, she developed respiratory problems and ear infections. She even coughed up blood. "When I took a breath," she says, "it felt like fiberglass shards." Eventually, after three long, painful years, Lane went out on sick leave, in February 2002. She is now applying for disability retirement.

Richard Stutman, of the Boston Teachers Union, helped Lane send the sample of her classroom bag to the Cambridge lab. He believes that Lane’s experience isn’t isolated. For years, he has received complaints from teachers about a host of illnesses. All have one thing in common, he says: "These people were healthy, then turned unhealthy."

In the past 10 years alone, Stutman has heard complaints about a wide range of middle- and high-school buildings in the city, including Madison Park Technical Vocational High, Charlestown High, South Boston High, English High, Grover Cleveland Middle, and Umana/Barnes Middle. Often, teachers bring Stutman samples taken from classrooms, just as Lane did – books, bags, and pieces of carpet – which he, in turn, sends to Environmental Health Associates. If results indicate mold, he says, "I use them to get the school department to remediate" by conducting tests and clean-ups.

Stutman, however, doesn’t believe the city administration takes the sick-building-syndrome issue very seriously. What this syndrome comes down to are tiny, invisible particles in the air that can affect some people worse than others. Says Stutman, "You cannot see the air, so why get bothered by poor air quality? That seems to be the administration’s attitude."

But for those who testified, too many people are complaining about the same or similar health ailments for it to be written off as coincidence. Stutman – and many other observers – hope the city-council hearings mark a new era, in which the powers that be actually address a long-standing issue. Concludes Stutman, "This is a widespread problem. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind."

By Kristen Lombardi