Maria Ponder had no idea what was wrong with her two elementary-aged children when they started getting spontaneous nose bleeds earlier this year.
After multiple trips to the doctor, Ponder’s daughter Isabella, a fifth grader at Martin Warren Elementary School, woke up in a pool of her own blood one night. Ponder’s son Dashawn, a third grader at the elementary school, lost his appetite and began vomiting on a consistent basis.
“(I was) talking to my nurse colleagues, and they were like, ‘That sounds like it might be some kind of poisoning or something. Have you had your house checked?’” Ponder said. “So, I went and bought the (radon) test and my house (was) fine.”
It wasn’t until Ponder received an email from the Warrensburg R-VI School District on Thursday, March 19, that she realized the issue might be coming from inside her children’s classrooms.
“During spring break, the district enlisted a third party provider professional contractor to conduct testing for radon due to air quality concerns,” the email from Superintendent Steve Ritter read. “Unfortunately, we had some areas of Martin Warren that had higher than recommended radon levels. Upon receiving these results, the classroom and service spaces located in the basement of Martin Warren Elementary have been closed, and all students, staff and service partners have been relocated to other areas of the building. Other areas of the building were determined to have air quality levels where students and staff could safely occupy those spaces.”
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, radon is an almost undetectable radioactive gas that forms when metals like uranium, thorium or radium, break down into soil and groundwater. Though there are no short-term symptoms associated with radon, exposure to this gas is hazardous and can cause unexplained weight loss, shortness of breath, chest pain and lung cancer.
Upon receiving Ritter’s email, Ponder pulled her kids from school and began looking into other education options.
“My kids will not be returning. I am going to do homeschool until they figure this out,” Ponder said. “(The district) made it sound like it wasn’t a big issue. Then you go look at what (radon) actually is and it’s concerning that they’re taking it so lightly.”
The 56 radon tests the district ordered from Titan Environmental Services out of Kansas City found that Martin Warren was at an average of 4.5 picocuries per liter, or pCi/L, throughout the building, with areas in the basement reaching as high as 30.8 pCi/L. The EPA’s website states that radon levels higher than 4 pCi/L must be treated.
“They ran that test from March 10th through 12th– (that) was spring break, and we had limited staff in there,” Assistant Superintendent Troy Marnholtz said. “Once we got the results back, we then immediately took the step of making sure we didn’t put kids in the basement.”
Though the basement had the highest radon measurements, Marnholtz said the space with the 30.8 pCi/L reading was a service provider office that was not used full time. The music classroom, the basement space that held the most children, tested at 8.3 pCi/L, which Marnholtz said was the highest measurement taken in a fully occupied classroom.
Many of the numbers on the initial report, he said, are a lot lower than the numbers that are currently being shared.
“We had a test result of a 17, we had a couple in the tens in storage spaces in the basement, but when you put those high numbers in place with all the other numbers, that’s why the average was 4.5 pCi/L,” Marnholtz said.
Since then, Marnholtz said the district has been knee-deep in mitigation efforts. Along with removing students and teachers from the affected areas, the district has been running HVAC machines, opening windows to allow fresh air into the school and has administered a second round of tests, of which the district received results via phone on Thursday, March 26.
The new results indicate five tested classrooms, rooms 103, 105, 106 , 107 and 121 have dropped below 1.0 pCi/L.
“We dropped from almost 5.6 pCi/L in one space, and 4.4 pCi/L– all of those classes tested below 1.0 pCi/L,” Marnholtz said. “As a matter of fact, they said the highest (result) was 0.6 pCi/L.”
As of now, Marnholtz said Martin Warren is going to continue operating as normal. Students and faculty will be kept out of the basement and in areas of the school where the district can guarantee air quality is safe.
“Martin Warren is going to stay open. These secondary results proved that running the systems, bringing fresh air in, mitigates the radon levels,” Marnholtz said. “It’ll help clean those spaces and keep those levels low, even if the system is unoccupied or shutdown for a long period of time. We’ll continue to operate with the kids there (and) do everything we can to keep them safe.”
New report or not, Ponder said she won’t consider sending Dashawn and Isabella back to school until the district provides physical proof they’ve taken care of the situation.
As she makes plans to take her children to see a specialist in Kansas City, she said she feels betrayed by a school district whose purpose is to provide quality education to children in a safe environment.
“These are people that are supposed to be looking out for our kids,” Ponder said through tears. “You worry about school shootings, you’re not worried that the school is poisoning your kid.”
Moving forward, Ponder said she hopes the district does more to ensure every child who could have been impacted by the radon found in the elementary school gets the adequate care they need. “I feel like right now, what they need to do is make sure they’re letting us know which kids were in a situation they shouldn’t have been in so we can make sure they’re OK,” Ponder said. “I feel like we have other schools in town– if they have to send them there for a while, or whatever they need– I don’t want my kids in that building.”
Hasina Shah can be reached at 660-747-8123.
