After test results showed elevated levels of a hazardous chemical in the air at Burlington High School, the building will close for more than a week, despite having just reopened.
An email from Burlington School District Superintendent Tom Flanagan informed parents late Wednesday that after just one day of remote learning, and one day of in-person learning, school would be going all online until Monday, Sept. 21, at the earliest.
Students at BHS had been attending school in a hybrid model, with half the students coming to school on Monday and Thursday, and the other half coming to school on Tuesday and Friday.
The closure is not related to Covid-19, but rather followed results Wednesday from tests last week that showed higher levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) than recommended by the EPA. The air quality testing was done throughout the BHS/Burlington Technical Center campus as part of the school’s $70 million “ReEnvisioning Project” renovation.
Prior to the school year beginning, the school was also required to test all of its HVAC and ventilation systems, though those tests were unrelated to the new results, which came from testing that was done purely because of the renovation.
In an interview, Flanagan said they would have liked to get the results from the PCB test back before students were already in the building, but that the testing timeline was determined by the construction crews, not by the district.
Flanagan also said he isn’t aware of PCB testing having ever happened in the past at BHS.
“What we know is that the levels of PCBs are elevated in the air in some places in one wing of BHS right now,” Flanagan said. “It doesn’t mean they always are, there can be some fluctuation. We don’t know what they were in the past, all we know is what they were when we came in and tested last week.”
PCBs are human-made chemicals that were widely used in building materials between 1950 and 1978, when the EPA banned certain uses of the chemicals. Significant exposure to the chemicals can cause negative effects on immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems, and have the potential to cause cancer, according to a fact sheet from the Vermont Health Department.
On Thursday and Friday, students at BHS, BTC, and OnTop will have no school at all. Then, on Monday, they will resume online learning until the school is deemed safe to reopen.
“It’s easier for us to flex and move into a remote learning position at this time,” Flanagan said. “I don’t want to say easier, because none of this is easy, but really, we would never have been able to do this in previous years.”
However, Flanagan said in some ways, it’s been an even bigger blow to have this closure during the pandemic, because of how excited students and staff were to come back to school for the first time since March. He said he actually hasn’t heard many concerns from students, parents, or teachers about having coexisted briefly with the elevated PCB levels in the building.
“I’m sure there is concern out there, but mostly I’ve heard people saying, look, let’s see what comes back from the air quality testing,” Flanagan said. “Mostly there is just disappointment and sadness for not being able to be in person.”
The preliminary results show elevated PCB levels only in the school’s F Building — which holds all of Burlington Technical Center’s classes, and a few of Burlington High School’s classes. The district is still waiting for official results from the F Building, which they expect to see Thursday, and full results from the A-E Buildings, which are expected early next week.
The elevated PCB levels come from the caulking in the school’s windows, which were installed in the ‘70s. The same caulking was used in the F Building as the A-E Buildings, though initial results show that levels were much lower in the other buildings. In the F Building, Flanagan said though some areas did not show elevated results, other areas had “significant” levels of PCBs, which is why Flanagan said he ultimately made the decision to close the school.
However, Flanagan said, the F Building has an HVAC system that is totally separate from the rest of the school, so it certainly would be a possibility to reopen the rest of the school while the F Building remains closed to address the elevated levels of PCBs.
“It’s very possible that we come back and the levels are acceptable in A through E,” Flanagan said. “But out of an abundance of caution, we want to make sure we take this seriously and wait until we get results.”
