lbock@telegram.com
WORCESTER — Federal environmental officials told school and health officials this morning that the clean-up of the Grafton Elementary Street School is going smoothly, addressing the potentially hazardous mercury that was brought into a classroom by a student on Tuesday.
“That's really good news,” said Worcester schools Chief Academic Officer Jeffrey J. Mulqueen, who was at the school throughout the morning. A specialized top-to-bottom cleaning of the building is ongoing.
A sixth-grade student brought nearly a pint of mercury to Grafton Street School to show a teacher on Tuesday, and that prompted an environmental investigation.
Despite the optimistic news
this morning, Mr. Mulqueen said classes on Monday will be held at the Fanning Building on Chatham Street. He said parents and guardians were told last night that students would be moved from the Grafton Street Elementary School to the Fanning Building today and Monday.
“We are still planning school there Monday,” Mr. Mulqueen said. “We want to avoid any confusion.”
The district bused about 240 students in Grades 3 to 6 away from Grafton Street's Building 2 yesterday as a multi-agency decontamination effort got under way.
Students and faculty in the building, plus second-graders who entered Building 2 to have lunch, had until 6 p.m. yesterday to voluntarily have their urine tested for mercury exposure. Mercury leaves the body quickly, so testing after a certain window doesn't make sense, Mr. Mulqueen said.
Julia Hurley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Health, said today that it takes 24 to 72 hours to get the results of the urine screening, and there are no screening results available yet.
Mr. Mulqueen said mercury screenings may have detected mercury on additional students.
The clothing of five students, including the student who took the mercury to school and students who were in the immediate area when the bottle was opened in a classroom, tested positive for mercury, but there were no positive mercury readings on the children's bodies. The mercury on 11 students' shoes was found through the use of a mercury-detecting wand before the students boarded a bus to the Fanning Building.
Mr. Mulqueen said city and school officials will have more information available later today. A database is being created to cross-check students and mercury screenings. The city's emergency management organized a command post, and Mr. Mulqueen said all the agencies will meet later today.
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