North Country Union High Will Delay School Start, Use Tents Due to PCBs

Students at North Country Union High School in Newport will start the year late and temporarily learn in tents after test results found high levels of airborne PCBs inside the B wing of the building.

Despite a $5 million project this summer to remove the toxic chemicals, preliminary test results that came back on Tuesday showed that airborne PCB levels in 13 of the 26 classrooms have stayed the same or risen. Results from the other 13 retested rooms are expected next week.
Given the first batch of results, “we have zero confidence that the mitigation is going to be successful in the other half of our B wing,” North Country Union High School principal Chris Young told Seven Days on Wednesday.

The bad news means that Young and his teaching staff, who returned to work on Tuesday, are now scrambling to make alternative plans for their roughly 720 students. They’ve pushed the start of school back a week, to September 3, and they’re in the process of installing six 40-by-60-foot tents — equipped with solid floors, electricity, Wi-Fi and heat — that can each hold two to three classes at a time.

The tents can be used until the snow flies. The gymnasium, which does not have PCB contamination, will also be partitioned into four classrooms. Physical education classes will happen outside or in a large storage area where tractors are usually kept.

Young said consultants and state officials have theorized that the still-high PCB levels are because things hadn’t “settled” after the remediation work. Another round of air testing is planned for September, before any more remediation work is scheduled.

If that testing doesn’t show better results, the school will have to bring in modular classrooms for the colder months, which state officials are helping them secure. The school will be reimbursed for the expenses from a dwindling pot of state funds.

North Country teachers knew this summer that the PCB situation might create challenges for the coming school year, Young said, but this week, he is giving them “support and space to come to terms with what this means.” He’s also trying to figure out with his staff how to turn the tents into spaces that are “suitable for learning.”

Last week, Vermont Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore told Seven Days that she was optimistic that lower PCB test results from North Country Union High School’s career-center wing suggested the remediation was working. Young said state officials have expressed disappointment with the latest results. Still, they’re not the ones who have to manage the day-to-day logistics of starting school with dozens of unusable classrooms.

“What is frustrating to me is we are essentially guinea pigs in this very expensive science experiment in how to mitigate PCBs,” Young said. 

North Country Union High School isn’t the only school that will start late.

Extensive mold contamination at Milton Elementary School is forcing that pre-K through 4 school to delay classes for a week, until September 3, while they finalize a relocation plan that “may include using the gymnasiums, mobile classrooms or enclosed tents,” according to a district press release.

Kevin McCallum contributed reporting.

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