The union came to the rescue and demanded safety testing and remediation after a contractor doing work on our school’s roof caused serious flooding.
When we walked in at 6:30 a.m. on a Monday in November 2016, we found 13 rooms completely flooded and water still pouring in. The kids were coming in at 8, so we had an hour and a half to make sure they’d be safe. We ran around the building unplugging electronics and saving everything we could save. But a lot was destroyed — smartboards, carpets and materials that teachers had bought with their own money.
The contractor’s answer was to just run a dehumidifier and continue as usual. So I reached out to the UFT.
Within a day, a UFT industrial hygienist was in the building checking for mold, airborne dust, carbon dioxide levels and anything the flooding could have caused that would be dangerous for students and staff. The tests came back positive for mold from all the water.
The UFT safety team marked all the affected areas and told the contractors they had a day to replace everything. After the contractors finished, the UFT reps came back to run all the tests again and make sure there was no additional mold growth anywhere else. They even invited worried parents to walk around the school with us as they ran the tests.
Afterwards, while the contractors continued their work on the roof, the UFT made sure dust levels were checked weekly.
We’d had such a rough time with the contractors until the UFT came in and set things on track. There had been two other floods at my school before the big one that pushed me to call my union. The contractor wanted to leave us high and not-so-dry. But after the UFT stepped in, there were no more floods — we were dry!
I want other educators to know that if there’s a safety issue in their school, all they have to do is call up the UFT and they’ll get the help they need.
Anthony Valentino is the chapter leader at PS 139 in Rego Park, Queens.
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