MOLD GETS OLD, FAST

After reading your article, “Attack of the School-Killer” (August 24-30), I feel people need to hear my first-hand experience with mold in schools.

In 1997, after a school renovation, I moved into my first classroom. The fact that it was in the basement with no windows didn’t bother me in the least. After four years of moving from one classroom to the next with a cart, I was thrilled to be getting any room.

During the fall of 1997, the basement rooms had a moisture problem. Floor tiles needed to be replaced twice because the moisture lifted them from the floor. I began to experience headaches and reported them to the school nurse and principal. During the summer of 1998, mold grew on all of the walls, keyboards, and ceiling tiles in the basement rooms. The custodians washed the mold off, and in the fall, classes resumed as usual.

Over three years, my health deteriorated until I was virtually incapacitated. I continued to beg the school administration for help. I visited my doctor repeatedly with sinus problems, severe headaches, dizziness, confusion, and debilitating fatigue. Unsure of what was causing my illness, my doctor ran tests for hypothyroidism and diabetes. When all of the results came back negative, she suspected that air quality was the culprit, and she prescribed various medications to alleviate my symptoms.

After explaining my situation to a new principal, I was moved out of the basement for the 2000-2001 school year. All of my medical problems went away.

In the fall of 2000, after being pushed by the teachers’ union, the school district tested and found dangerous levels of mold in the basement. Although they developed an “action plan” to “fix” the problem, they continue to drag their feet to this day. Perhaps they are unwilling to dedicate the resources needed to fix the problem.

I was pleased to read in your article that there are a number of school systems in Maine that are willing to take care of air quality problems rather than sweeping them under the mold-infested rug.

No one can tell me that mold in schools is not a problem. I lost three years of my life to mold and a school system’s refusal to take care of its teachers and students.

Jennifer Richardson

Casco

GIVE ADAMS HIS DUE

Dan Kennedy does a nice summation of the reviews, works, and reactions to David McCullough’s biography of John Adams (Portland Phoenix, August 31), but is it necessary to view the work through the political lens of our Clintonesque era? Certainly the contemporary political scrutinizing of one’s “character” leaves much room for abuse, but it is a bit of an oversimplification to throw McCullough’s in with that righteous mob. Fact is, Jefferson was in many ways a contemptible man. It is elitist of Kennedy and the reviewers he summarizes to excuse Jefferson’s offensive hypocrisies; deceptive dealings with people; and racist sentiments expressed towards blacks, Catholics, and Native Americans as simply the intellectual excesses of a great thinker. And was Jefferson as great a thinker as Kennedy claims? Hardly. Most of what he wrote were fairly common sentiments expressed by numerous writers of that age.

McCullough can be justly accused of enjoying his subject more than a biographer ought, but in so doing, he is not unlike many men who dealt with the amiable and outspoken John Adams. Even his enemies praised him for his moral integrity, force of convictions, honesty, and dedication to the cause of Independence. Adams might be guilty of exaggerating his place in our history, but that’s no excuse to continue to deny him of it.

Ben Monaghan

Portland

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