Alamance-Burlington school board members voted 6-0 during their latest meeting Tuesday afternoon to retroactively approve contracts for mold remediation and air quality testing at 30 ABSS schools – just hours before the presence of mold was confirmed at the school system’s own Central Office on Vaughn Road in Burlington.
ABSS issued a press release Wednesday morning, reporting that employees at Central Office are being temporarily relocated to other parts of the building or to other facilities that have been cleared of mold contamination.
Meanwhile, school board members voted 6-0 Tuesday afternoon to approve a contract totaling approximately $12.8 million for mold remediation by Builder Services of Creedmoor. That contract is being funded by capital reserve funding that Alamance County’s commissioners agreed two weeks ago to disburse to ABSS for the mold cleanup, based on a copy of the contract presented to the board.
School board members also voted 6-0 to approve a contract with LRC Indoor Testing and Research of Raleigh to conduct air quality testing. That contract is for indoor air quality testing and totals $380,000; also approved Tuesday was an addendum to the contract with LRC totaling $110,000 for unspecified “additional testing services.”
School board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves told her fellow board members prior to the vote that the contracts are “for work already in progress.”
Both contracts and the addendum to the contract for LRC were approved unanimously, without discussion.
ABSS officials announced earlier this week that all 30 schools where mold contamination had been identified had been subsequently cleared and deemed “safe for students and staff to occupy,” starting Monday, September 11, which was the first day of the 2023-24 school year.
