By Brian Kelly
Herald Writer
OAK HARBOR — School has been canceled for the entire week for Olympic View Elementary School after students and staff complained of health problems that may be linked to air quality at the school.
The school, which has been holding classes in the Old North Whidbey building while Olympic View’s permanent building is renovated, has approximately 430 students. District officials are considering closing the Old North Whidbey building for the rest of the year, and the school board will talk about the closure at a special meeting Wednesday night.
For parents of students at Olympic View, an informational meeting will be held at 7 tonight in the library at Oak Harbor High School.
School board member Gary Wallin said district officials took quick action in closing the school after the district received complaints from teachers and students last week. A task force was set up Friday night to find locations in Oak Harbor where Olympic View classes could be held. That group in now looking at empty buildings, churches and other possible places to temporarily house students, Wallin said.
"They don’t have anything real firm yet," Wallin added.
District employees were working through the weekend on the problem.
"We’ve got a lot of folks working on ideas, trying to work on solutions," he said. "We’ll find a way to make it work. We just don’t know yet how that’s going to happen."
In a press statement, Superintendent Richard Schulte said concerns about air quality prompted the closure. He said the closure was a precautionary action meant to keep students and employees safe.
Olympic View Elementary sent a letter to parents of children at the school on Saturday, notifying them of the closure. The letter also said that the district hopes to have a plan for relocating staff and students to an alternative site or sites within the week.
The move comes too slow for some, however.
"It’s about damn time. They’ve known for a while there was something wrong with the school," said LeAnn Keen, who has three children at Olympic View.
Her 9-year-old daughter, Samantha Ireland, has missed more than a month of school this year, Keen said, because of health problems that she says are related to mold and stagnant air in the Old North Whidbey building.
"She’s had upper respiratory and sinus infections since the beginning of the school year," Keen said. "It’s been an ongoing fight trying to get her well."
Keen said she has had problems after visits to the school, too.
"It is so nasty walking in the halls, just the smell of stagnant air," Keen said.
"My eyes burn, my nose starts to run, my throat starts to hurt," she said. "When I walk into one certain classroom I get a really, really bad headache."
The closure of the Old North Whidbey building leaves more than just students and staff from Olympic View uncertain about where their classes will be held.
The Old North Whidbey building once housed Oak Harbor’s high school, but has been used in recent years as a temporary school for elementary schools that were being refurbished. After Olympic View, Broad View Elementary was scheduled to use the building during the 2002-03 school year.
In the upcoming weeks, district officials will talk with staff and parents to decide where Broad View classes should be held next year.
7 p.m. April 22, Oak Harbor High School library, 950 NW Second Ave.
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