RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Richmond School Board members are speaking out about solutions to infrastructure problems ahead of tomorrow’s school board meeting.
This comes after parents and teachers voiced concerns over the negative health effects their children are experiencing due to mold in the schools, in addition to problems with AC units, at the last Richmond School Board meeting on Monday, Sept. 11.
“We need to get our kids and our teachers out of antiquated, broken down facilities that often include mold, not functioning AC,” said School Board member Jonathan Young.
Dr. Shonda Harris-Muhammed, Richmond’s Sixth District School Board Representative, echoed Young’s concerns.
“Every school in our division — and, let me be clear — needs some maintenance love,” Harris-Muhammed said.
Harris-Muhammed and Young provided insight as to how these potential health problems could be remedied.
“I would hope that the School Board would talk about a timeline, a selection of schools, and what school needs to be in the top five or top ten. We need to hear from our facilities and maintenance team about what the needs are,” Harris-Muhammed proposed.
Young suggested that smaller schools take advantage of the unused space of larger schools in the city.
“We have a brand new Henry Marsh Elementary School with 300 vacant seats. We could literally take the entire Woodville Elementary, all 200 students there, and enroll them at Henry Marsh, in a brand new building,” Young suggested.
Young also mentioned staffing issues that may have been caused by the unsafe conditions.
