Mold forces indefinite closure of Barack Obama Elementary as new school year begins

RICHMOND, Va. — Barack Obama Elementary School will not open this week due to mold, and students will temporarily relocate to Clark Springs Elementary School while remediation continues.

Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras said in a message to families Monday that teachers and staff setting up classrooms discovered “additional areas of mold growth (for example, behind bulletin board paper),” prompting the district to send everyone home for additional cleaning and testing.

“All of this is realistically going to take several days. So we will not be returning to the Obama building this week. Our goal is to do so by Monday,” Kamras wrote. “In the interim, we are working to get Clark Springs Elementary School ready as a temporary space. We’ll have more information about that by tomorrow. For now, school is closed on Tuesday.”

“Roller coaster is a good word,” said Samieh, a parent of students at the school for the past seven years, of the past five days. “The information keeps kind of cascading of ‘This is what’s going to happen. Oh, actually, it’s not what’s going to happen. Oh, we’re good. Oh, we’re not good.’.”

The district had already pushed back Barack Obama Elementary’s first day from Monday, Aug. 24, after air quality tests showed elevated mold spore levels inside the building.

Kamras said the mold growth stemmed from an HVAC outage that caused mold to spread in the school’s basement and on some furniture. The district also received reports of rodents in several rooms.

3rd District School Board Member Ali Faruk told CBS 6 that one of the school’s chillers broke down in May. He said the replacement parts have still not arrived, but they were able to get it working again and cooling the building.

He said a combination of factors allowed the mold to grow including leaks in the building and the extreme heat and rain over the summer.

Kamras said an air quality test on Saturday came back with slightly elevated mold levels, but remediation efforts uncovered what crews believe is the root cause.

“Most importantly, our remediation efforts uncovered what we believe is the primary source of the mold growth, which was a moist pipe hidden in a supply closet above ceiling tiles,” Kamras said. “We were able to thoroughly clean this impacted area, and the mold levels dropped significantly in response.”

Kamras said all air quality tests came back clear Sunday afternoon, except for the art room, which was sealed off to allow teachers to enter the building Monday morning to set up their classrooms.

Samieh said it is not the first time there have been mold issues at the school, with issues during the 2023-24 school year. She said seeing this happen again makes her feel like Obama Elementary is not as a priority as other schools for RPS like Fox or Holton. Several parents told CBS 6 they support the Obama leadership, but have less faith in the central office.

“That’s what would happen for other schools. Our demographic is not the school where I’m seeing that approach, and it just speaks to a systemic level of how we are not as important,” said Samieh.

But Faruk said that the administration has very responsive and that Kamras and facility staff were in Obama with him as the new mold was discovered and making plans on how to address it.

He said RPS works really hard to treat every school and community equally, but said historically there have been communities in the city that were not as invested in.

School officials are holding a town hall with parents to discuss the recent issues at Obama and the next steps forward. Samieh said she wants to hear them say this is a priority for them.

“I want to know the plan for doing this right in a way that doesn’t just stick our kids in a contingency building that’s falling apart somewhere else in RPS.”

Previous Coverage: Obama Elementary parents divided over mold and rodent concerns

Obama Elementary parents divided over mold and rodent concerns: ‘We love this school’

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