Parents Worry About More CO Problems At Dallas School
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Testing continues Monday at Lakewood Elementary School, in the Dallas Independent School District, where parents are worried that the classrooms are making children sick. The school had to evacuate back in March of last year because students and faculty members were becoming ill due to high levels of carbon monoxide.
Now, there are concerns that the problems may have returned.
Students just last week reported symptoms like dizziness and nausea. The school installed monitoring equipment on Friday in the two classrooms where those symptoms appeared. The equipment checks for things like carbon monoxide, ozone and other volitile chemicals.
The tests did not show anything serious throughout the weekend.
Still, when Gretchen Darby's first-grader said that she was not feeling well, it brought back troubling memories for the parent. "It just kind of took me back to last year, when my daughter was in kindergarten and we had the carbon monoxide scare," said Darby. "I was just really hoping that wasn't the situation again."
The air monitoring equipment is being removed from the school on Monday, because the air testing is over. But a third-party environmental quality company will continue to keep an eye on the situation with their own air tests. Meanwhile, the district's nurses have started searching for other sources of the illnesses, and what the two classrooms might have in common.
"Last year, it almost seemed like it was on the parents to bring detectors of their own," said parent Byron Howard. "It is really good to hear they're doing that on top of their own checks."
"Do I feel completely confident that she's 100 percent safe in this environment? I'm just not sure yet," Darby added. "I'm kind of teetering on keeping her home just until the situation gets figured out."
Monday's attendance numbers have not been finalized yet, but the principal said that it appeared to be like any other Monday at the campus.
