Middle school merger spells disaster

As we mentioned in our social media posts, the proposed middle school grade configuration is a vote coming before the board today for which there has been little transparency and no communicated plans. It is being proposed as if it is the only option, however an alternative exists - to maintain grade 6-8 configuration at the two remaining middle schools, and allocate students based on regional boundaries and building capacity. We became aware of an email from a teacher with similar concerns and much more specific details, and were given permission to publish it today. 

Dear Esteemed CASD School Board Members,

Before I begin, I need to apologize for using an anonymous email address to contact you.  To be 100% transparent about my choice for anonymity, I fully and unequivocally fear strong negative retaliation from our district's administration for contacting you, but could not hold my silence any longer.  Unfortunately, this is the best I could do to send you information.

To give you the best perspective I can on who I am, I have been full-time teaching in CASD for over a decade, and much of that time has been in North Brandywine Middle School. 

PRIMARILY THIS EMAIL IS TO ASK THAT YOU AT LEAST POSTPONE IF NOT CANCEL THE PLANNED MERGER OF NORTH AND SOUTH BRANDYWINE AND HALT THE CREATION OF THE 7th & 8th GRADE CENTER.  However, this is not just a plea, as I will provide you with my reasoning, including photos in some instances, of why I believe this to not be the right choice in any shape or form for CASD School District at this time.

I will be addressing why I feel this merger is wholly not advantageous to a real learning environment through comments on occupancy, the general state of the building and classrooms, and the needs that need to be addressed before the students arrive coupled with current goings-on construction-wise in the building.

First and foremost, is the major problem of occupancy according to multiple public statements at board meetings, as well as the original plans which I have personally seen when there was talk of building a new middle school a number of years ago, North Brandywine Middle School's main building has a maximum SAFE occupancy of 750 persons.  According to discussions I've had with NBMS building administration, when you add on the modular buildings (more on the state of those later) you get 100+ additional persons (this estimate is due to the fact that I've heard multiple "guesses" as to the actual occupancy numbers added by the modulars from both upper and building administrators.)  This raises the building total occupancy to approximately 850+ persons allowed to be SAFELY in the building.  Please note that, I keep addressing the safety portion because there is a massive difference between SAFE occupancy and OPERATIONAL occupancy.  

According to what I've been led to believe, there are almost 800 students currently enrolled in 6th and 7th Grade moving to this building next year as the plan currently stands.  That number is only students, which already puts us very close to the SAFE occupancy of the building and would severely hamper our EDUCATIONAL OPERATIONS.  When you take into account the teachers, aides, office staff, administrators, psychologists, cafeteria workers, custodial staff, and others also in this building, NBMS will probably very regularly be just under or even over the safe use levels mandated by law.  To put this into perspective, when I first started here in the mid-2000s we had approximately 600 students in this building, and this building was almost quite literally bursting at its seams, and we are talking about adding an additional ~250 persons to that.  To continue, in the mid-2000s, a person could barely traverse the hallways during class changes back then due to crowding, students were packed into classrooms of 30 or more, and the cafeteria was wall-to-wall children with cafeteria tables unsafely forced into every crevice of that space.  

Many of my fellow faculty who have been here with me this long have stated very similar beliefs, and there is a general fear of this building's maximum occupancy creating a very poor place to learn.  We as a faculty believe wholeheartedly that there is no way possible to house all these people. This is regardless of the fact that very misleadingly on paper North Brandywine has the most space for this merger as well as the most number of classrooms (some of which honestly are not fit for students in any way at this time, or have been converted for other important uses.)  So based on simply the case of occupancy, many of us fully believe we are putting the safety and the actually ability to have an educational environment of the CASD Students and Faculty at risk in an attempt to "save taxpayer money" by this merger and it shouldn't be attempted at this time.

Secondly, the general state of the building is atrocious and not ready for even more students.  Let's start with the general state of the building.  Just from a cleanliness status alone, the hiring of ServiceMaster has left this building filthy and uncared for.  When we had our our own CASD Maintenance staff in the building you could always count on cleaning and repair jobs being done in a timely manner, including replacing light bulbs, fixing clogged toilets, unjamming lockers, mopping halls and rooms, and emptying trash, but ServiceMaster's attention to details (as well as their contractual obligations) are few and far between.  Currently there is so much general filth on just the hallway floors (i.e., spit out gum, stains, skids, and general layers of dirt) that I have repeatedly heard parents entering the school commenting on the state being "disgusting."  

Most offensively, there is the terrible issue with the NBMS sewer connection.  We have

repeatedly had entire bathrooms closed and students barred from using them due to sewer back-ups, proof of this is easily found in the multiple maintenance requests filed by our office to the CASD Plumber throughout the year.  Just to clarify, I do not mean just students intentionally (or unintentionally) clogging the toilets, which also does horrifically often happen (and takes CASD Maintenance weeks to move the official requests filed with the office to completion,) I am referring to actual raw sewage waste backing up into the bathrooms.  (Please refer to PHOTO 1, a toilet in the main bathroom near the cafeteria that currently has had black sewer backup in it for days with only a plastic trash bag over it & PHOTO 2 which is a leak in a small faculty bathroom near the previous photo that has what appears to be bacterial scum growing on the surface of the trash can that holds the spillover, also left for many, many days, in the attachments.)  

Then there is the general mold problem that festers in the building.  There are many examples of mold like the ceiling of the current faculty room near the air conditioners (see PHOTOS 5 & 6), and, until recently with repair work that was done, the ceiling of the Auditorium, and, as previously mentioned, the two modulars immediately attached to the NBMS Main building (before you reach the outer set of modulars currently used for 6th Grade) have not been used all year because mold appears to be growing unchecked in those rooms.  When those classrooms were attempted to be used at the start of the school year, multiple teachers and students complained of symptoms similar to those found in allergic reactions to mold, and the decision was made to no longer use them... which ended the complaints. However, the mold has gotten so bad that it is also growing on classroom supplies (as seen in PHOTO 3) simply left out in classrooms.  PHOTO 3's original source was shown directly to the Chester County Board of Health Inspector for their analysis when they were in the building surveying the cafeteria space, and they stated it was most certainly mold.  Upper administration has stated that they will be moving South Brandywine's AC units to North Brandywine's campus to combat this (while they pointedly avoided mentioning mold, but labeled it as "cooling and other moisture problems"), but there are not enough units at SBMS to cover the entire building based on the count of units that we were told in a meeting regarding this merger.  Many of us are of the belief that these states of filthiness, disrepair, as well as the sewer and mold issues need to be fully and unequivocally resolved and not just temporarily fixed with the stop-gap attempts that have been done this year before we even consider putting the health of more CASD Students and Staff at risk.

Finally, the general needs of the building that need to be completed before 800 students arrive are too many.  First I want to talk about asbestos tiles.  Throughout the year upper administration has been piece-meal removing the original asbestos tiles from classrooms.  While this is certainly a necessary procedure, it has been exceptionally disruptive to learning as the classroom needs to be cleared of materials and the student relocated while the procedure is completed, but it has also created terrible secondary issues.  Primarily, removing these tiles is a major health hazard, and the company that has been handling the removal has been consistently poor at following proper safety procedures.  Please note the following website which indicates the wording on the signage as regulated by OSHA:  https://safetyblog.nationalmarker.com/education-training/osha-implements-new-asbestos-lead-signage-standards-as-of-june-1-2016/  Please now note that the signage being used by the company removing the asbestos tiles, which have been attached to

several classrooms still being vented while students and faculty are in the building in Photo 6 which does not mention ASBESTOS, but simply warns to not enter.  Then there is the fact that they have repeatedly put the health of students and teachers at risk WHEN THEY HAVE LEFT VENTING ASBESTOS TILE ROOM DOORS WIDE OPEN (see PHOTO 7) with no visible signage.  Photo 7 was taken moments before students arrived in the building.  That being said it has been observed to take roughly on average 4-5 days for each classroom to have its tiles removed and then the room vented.  This leaves a dry concrete floor in the classroom that then needs to be sealed to prevent concrete dust from settling in the entire space, and this next process takes an additionally observed 2-3 days.  That means 6-8 days (if everything goes off one after another with no disruptions) per classroom.  

Upper administration has stated that this will be completed before the start of the school year, however there are so many classrooms as well as large group spaces (i.e., the library, main office, and large classroom spaces) needing the tile removal that it is hard to believe that with 8 weeks of summer remaining that this will be finished by the directly stated date of "beginning of August return of teachers to classrooms" by Upper Administration. This is not even including the proposed installation of AC units from SBMS as well as the standard summer maintenance the building should receive before students return.  We are doing a massive disservice to our students if we rush this merger into happening for the next school year, and many of us at NBMS feel this would be folly to even fathom the idea that it could be possibly ready for Early August, let alone the arrival of students 3 weeks later.  We

cannot do that to our students, where we hope that things will be finished and ready, even if we were to ignore the sewer issues and mold issues and just focus on these things.

Thank you for reading this very important email on why you should please VOTE NO on the merger of NBMS and SBMS at this time.  I hope it has convinced you that CASD is not ready for this merger, that leaving the buildings as they are would be wholly better, and that rushing into such a catastrophic merger would be disastrous to our student's education.  Many teachers are with me in begging you to not continue with what we see as a doomed-to-fail venture.

With hope for the future,

A CONCERNED NBMS TEACHER