ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — For the third time this week, Alamance County leaders gathered to talk mold.
Alamance-Burlington Schools System announced 5 more toxic mold discoveries during this meeting.
ABSS said Eastlawn and Haw River Elementary, Woodlawn Middle, Eastern, and Graham High Schools have cases of toxic mold in their buildings.
District and county leaders held a meeting to discuss these cases as well as, what this means for students and staff returning to school.
"This is the primary concern for the county, for 26,000 ABSS students, so I'm happy to be here as long as it takes to get this thing resolved," Alamance County Commissioner Craig Turner said.
Commissioner Turner made several motions in order to address the growing mold problem. One of the motions he and the board passed was the use of capital reserves and lottery funds. The school district estimated that more than $5 million is still needed to cover all of the charges.
Another was to take money from other projects, like roofing, in order to pay for mold removal, "we are re-apportioning about $5 million that was going to those roof projects, that came from a capital reserve source. We are re-allocating that money for mold remediation," Commissioner Turner said.
Officials are also discussing how they're going to maximize the clean spaces they have ahead of the first day of school on Tuesday, Sept. 5.
Not only does the district have to clean up the existing mold found on surfaces and HVAC systems, Commissioner Pamela Thompson said plans need to be made and funds need to be allocated in order to fix faulty windows, roofs, and HVAC systems for this not to happen again.
According to the ABSS mold remediation dashboard, there are 13 schools ready for students and staff to enter, 25 schools with remediation in progress, and 3 schools currently being inspected for mold.
The district says it'll have 2,000 contractors on site this weekend to speed up the process.
"Other than the windows in the front of the building —no windows will be changed; although, they need to be changed," Chief Operations Officer, Greg Cook shared. "The windows in the back came with the school —you can’t get parts to fix them anymore —they are too old. Again, they need to be replaced but they are only replacing the windows in the front as of right now."
The school district said they could follow an A and B day schedule at fixed schools or explore the option of going virtual.
Commissioner Turner says the board wants kids in desks by Tuesday, September 5. Some parents, like Tameka Harvey think differently, " I think ABSS should just say, 'hey, let's do virtual until the end of September.' October we will open our school doors up, knowing that the air quality is good in our schools and knowing that kids are safe with coming back to our schools. I get it nobody wants to do virtual and that's fine but when you think about the safety of our children I think virtual is okay," Harvey said.