The attorney representing parents of four Covington Middle School students filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Alleghany Highlands Public Schools after a carbon monoxide leak and recurring bad smells, demanding that the current facility be closed.
A hearing scheduled for April 23 at the Alleghany County Circuit Court will consider several temporary injunction requests of the plaintiffs, including:
- Closing the CMS building, used for students between the fifth and eighth grades, with the understanding that there are options to relocate or use virtual learning so that kids can still receive an education.
- Offering alternative education options, such as remote learning, for students who are not comfortable returning to school due to health concerns.
- Pausing any truancy proceedings being pursued against families who are opting to hold their children out of school due to concerns related to building safety.
“This is a public health crisis that demands attention from every level of government, and we look forward to resolving this matter in a way that ensures the health and safety of every child at Covington Middle School,” the plaintiffs’ representative, Roanoke lawyer John Fishwick, concluded in a press release he distributed on Wednesday.
The lawsuit lists the Alleghany Highlands seven-member school board and Superintendent Kim Halterman as the defendants.
AHPS spokesman Darrell Gleason said the district is aware of reports that the suit has been filed but has not seen the lawsuit or petition and had no comment.
Fishwick simultaneously presented a petition to Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Emily Anne Gullickson asking her and the Virginia Board of Education to intervene in this situation. The document includes 25 signatories, 13 of them listing Covington addresses and the other 12 using Alleghany County zip codes.
Covington Middle School, which was opened in 1950 and, according to the lawsuit, underwent its most recent renovation in 1990, was closed on Jan. 31 due to a combination of the detection of some strange odors and several teachers and students feeling ill. During a thorough investigation conducted by a number of building safety groups that weekend, a carbon monoxide leak, caused by a faulty exhaust system for a gas stove in the school’s cafeteria, was discovered and addressed.
The following week, it was decided by the AHPS not to reopen the school until an independent air quality and building systems engineering assessment could be completed. During that time, the district’s 581 middle school students continued their studies through remote instruction.
AHPS hired two outside firms to conduct both air quality and building mechanical system inspections. In the interim, the district also undertook a number of other facility improvements, including the repair of a third-floor air handling unit, thorough cleaning of the boiler room and radiators, repairing areas that had suffered water damage and giving the interior a full deep cleaning.
The district also installed carbon monoxide detectors throughout the building, which the facility had lacked prior to Jan. 31.
The remote learning model continued until the board voted on March 11 to return to in-school instruction on March 18. According to the timeline dedicated to the middle school’s issues posted on the district’s website, the unanimous vote to reopen the school came after the board members were presented with the final air quality and building systems reports. Gov. Glenn Youngkin said he was “extremely disappointed” that the school had been closed so long because he believes in-person instruction should be a priority and that his administration “worked really hard” to make sure the school reopened.
While the district reported strong attendance numbers at the school the first week back at CMS, that trend reversed significantly on the days following the decision to move some students located on the building’s third floor to another part of the facility when another unknown odor was detected on March 31.
The second incident prompted some parents to seek legal advice and file the lawsuit.
In addition to the closure of the school, the parents are also asking for compensation of the ongoing costs of testing their children’s carboxyhemoglobin level, which they state has remained higher than what is considered a normal level, and alternative educational options for those students have been advised by their doctors to not return to school at this point.
The lawsuit states that the school district has other facilities available to it, including the former Clifton Middle School, which was built in 2001 and is currently being used as an alternative education site.
Attached to the filed lawsuit provided by Fishwick, the four suing parties, joined by six other Covington Middle School parents, signed declarations that their children are still showing signs of unusually high carboxyhemoglobin levels that they suspect are related to carbon monoxide exposure in the months prior to the cafeteria leak being discovered.
Most of the declarations also include a claim that the newly installed monitors have gone off since the students returned and went on to state that this was the result of a faulty battery.
Covington emergency services director and chief of police Christopher Smith said last month that the only report of a monitor sounding an alarm since the school was reopened was a portable device brought to school by a student. Smith said his staff determined this happened as a result of the monitor being kept in a backpack and unable to receive the proper amount of airflow for it to function properly.
Fishwick said that while the judge who will hold the injunction hearing could make a ruling before April 23, he does not expect that to happen.
