South County Journal
December 08, 2000
RENTON — Something stinks at McKnight Middle School and school officials are trying to find out why.
A noxious odor is wafting through the four-year-old building in the Renton Highlands and some students and teachers are complaining about headaches. But so far, school officials say air-quality tests and minor fixes haven't solved the problem.
"It's been coming and going," Superintendent Dolores Gibbons said of the rotten-egg, sewer smell. "It is very elusive. This odor will come and go away at different times and different places."
The odor has been an ongoing issue for at least a year.
District officials earlier replaced a missing trap on one of the school's vents and repaired a vent, which only temporarily fixed the stench. A round of air-quality tests already have been done. Canisters have been placed throughout the two-story building to capture the smell. A portable camera sent through sewer pipes beneath the building found two sites that may be blocked, but more testing still needs to be done, Gibbons said last night.
Test results, to date, however, show that the noxious odors "are far, far under anything that represents, by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) standards, hazardous," she said. "However, that's not to say headaches aren't happening."
An independent company will be at the school today to conduct more air quality tests.
But some parents have said their children are coming home with headaches and feeling sick.
Terri Zura's son, Nick, started complaining about headaches three-quarters of the way through his first year at McKnight as a sixth-grader. He is now in the eighth grade and has to take aspirin several times a week for the ailment.
"I took it as stress of switching schools and a new environment but then you start to ask, is it the school or just something else?" Zura said. "I'm somewhat concerned just due to the fact it has been around for a while. Nobody wants their child to be sick."
See STENCH, A8
But Zura said she's hopeful the district will "do everything they can as quickly as possible," adding that Principal Nancy Diaz-Miller sent a letter to parents several weeks ago alerting them of what was happening at school.
"The district has always been very good once the problem has been made known," she said.
Yesterday, district officials met with teachers and staff members to talk about the odor. After-school activities and the school's Homework Club were canceled. Earlier this week, the school PTA talked about the same issue.
"It's clearly something we're working on and concerned about," Gibbons said.
Teachers have the option to move their classes into the library or gym if the odor becomes intolerable, although Gibbons admits it's not an ideal answer.
"It's probably multiple causes and multiple fixes," she said. "We have fixed some of the things but they don't appear to be yet complete fixes."
District officials are waiting for another set of lab results to determine if school will need to be closed. If any major repairs need to be made, officials said they hope to have the work done during winter break. The last day of school is Dec. 15 for Renton students.
McKnight, the district's $17.5 million state-of-the-art school, was funded by a 1992 bond voters approved for school construction.
Linda Woo covers education. She can be reached at mailto:[email protected] 253-872-6726.
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