Mold Problem Shuts Down Oregon School

Students and teachers at Waldo Middle School will stay home all next week while workers clean up potentially hazardous mold.

It will cost at least $225,000 to remove the mold, school officials said Friday.

Salem-Keizer School District closed the school Wednesday after consultants warned a second time that the mold problem was getting worse.

If the work drags on past the end of next week, Waldo’s 740 students may be sent to Stephens Middle School.

Sections of the school were repaired last summer to stop water leaks that could have caused the mold problems. But ceiling tiles that were already moldy weren’t cleaned.

Kathy Ellis, a consultant who took samples of the mold, told the district in a recent report that some of the mold found was of a “pathogenic” disease-producing variety that isn’t usually found at such high levels indoors and could cause “a potential serious health hazard.”