A weekend air duct cleaning at Los Paseos Elementary in south
San Jose left a mess for students and staff returning to school
Monday.
A weekend air duct cleaning at Los Paseos Elementary in south San Jose left a mess for students and staff returning to school Monday.
Los Paseos Principal Bob Davis said there was a fine layer of dust on desks, chairs and the floor when school opened. He said Friday that a cleaning crew was called in.
But some parents – it is not clear how many – were concerned enough about the dust, citing potential problems for students with asthma and other respiratory ailments to send out an anonymous e-mail to Davis, the District Office, the School Board, the county health department and The Times.
The email states that children were “subject to cleaning their own desks and chairs.”
Davis said students routinely clean their desks if they have gotten messy during a craft project, for example, and some of the teachers may not have wanted to wait for the cleaning crew to get around to their room and so asked the students to help.
Another concern in the email was that “the first and second grade classes were instructed to eat on the dusty cafeteria floor.”
The custodian mopped the floor and cleaned the tables Monday morning, Davis said, and students were asked to sit on the floor during one of the school’s three lunch periods because of a fine arts performance, but “there were no sandwiches directly on the floor.”
The school is undergoing remodeling to accommodate more students as the result of the closing of Encinal Elementary two years ago. The fourth through sixth grades were formally housed at Encinal; now grades K through six attend Los Paseos.
Davis said just one parent had asked about the dust prior to the email.
Only one of approximately 20 parents interviewed Friday morning as they dropped children off knew about the dust.
Rich Fuchs, director of the Consumer Protection Divison for the Santa Clara County Environmental Health Division, said Friday that an anonymous call was received Thursday and was passed on to an inspector.
Humphrey Karioki, a supervising registered environmental health inspector for the department, said an inspector Friday found no problems in the kitchen or dining area. He added that the inspection results did not mean were or were not problems earlier in the week.
As for any health problems related to the dust, Davis said there was “nothing out of the ordinary.”
