Jaffrey-Rindge has addressed most of the mold issue that cropped up last week and caused the district to push back the opening date of school to Tuesday, Sept. 7.
Classes in the Jaffrey-Rindge School District was scheduled to begin on Aug. 31. After it was evident that mitigation of the mold and flooding issues could not be fully addressed by that date, the school board held an emergency meeting on Friday, and unanimously voted to push the start date back by one week.
District Communications Coordinator Nick Handy said that all mold-affected rooms were cleaned and treated over the weekend. An environmental hygienist tested the air quality in all the impacted rooms, tests that came back “favorably,” according to Handy.
“We have notified all affected teachers that they are now able to enter those spaces and prepare their rooms for the start of the school year,” Handy said.
The hygienist did identify one space that needed to be cleaned and retested – Handy said that these steps were taken, and the district now awaits further results from this one space.
The mold impacted eight rooms at Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School and Conant High School, five rooms at Jaffrey Grade School, and eight at Rindge Memorial School.
Handy said that the district estimates the cost incurred caused by mold clean-up and other significant damages due to flooding this summer will amount to about $100,000, a sum that the district anticipates will be mostly covered by insurance.
That flooding damage includes water and pipe damage underneath the Conant High School Pratt Auditorium, which Superintendent Reuben Duncan stated would be fixed by the new date for the first day of school by a company contracted by the district.
“This summer has been full of unprecedented struggles,” Duncan wrote in a back-to-school update prior to the decision to delay the schools’ opening.