Matt Kelly, the Mold Man, explains why schools harbor hidden mold in flat roofs and portable classrooms, then get ignored due to tight budgets. His son Isaac reacted badly at school; a teacher there later became ill. If your school has mold, use HEPA filters at your desk, avoid the word "mold" in conversations with administrators, or leave if exposure is severe.
Mold in the classroom. Deb's mentions that she got very sick along with students in her classroom. So, you know, it was really bad. When the kids are sick too, usually it's the teachers that feel it first because our, you know, being older, our toxic loads, our toxic buckets are much more full than the students. But the students getting sick too, we know, is extremely bad. Fifteen years ago, mold issues were hidden. I just wanted to talk about mold in the classroom for a minute because I see especially in pans and pandas groups where parents post and say, always comment on how their child is either worse at school or flares at school. Or we're seeing, they're seeing a pattern around school. And schools are notorious for mold. Why? Because they have flat roofs. Anything with a flat roof is going to leak. And with schools and churches and gyms and all these places with flat roofs, the budget's not always going to fix leaks fully and properly and replace damp material and everything that we know now after being know, learning so much about mold, we know how quick we have to be to dry things out and replace effective material. But these places just don't have the budgets or the people watching it or the knowledge. There's so many layers here to prevent these problems. And schools are bad. Even with our own son, Isaac, that was a mouthful. Even with our own son Isaac, when he was having a bad day, bad morning, he'd missed the bus. But then we try to get him to the point where he was okay and he decided he could go. We take him to school, drop him off, and 30, 40 minutes later, we get a call from the office. Anybody who's in the office and would like picked up because he was feeling awful. And even years later, our son went back to that school for a play with our family. And he reacted even in the gymnasium because the school has its own mold problem hidden in the walls, no doubt in the ceilings, wherever. But the school itself is many decades flat roof. Okay, so schools are notorious for mold, especially portables too. If you're one of the unlucky students or teachers that have to go outside into a portable for overflow, those are notorious for mold. And I went to a dentist, oh, maybe 10 years ago and figured out with the dental assistant that we're kind of from the same area. And it turned out her mom taught in one of the portables that I went to as a student. I had one year in a portable. Her mom was teaching in one of those portables at the same school I went to. And they found out Many years later that it was full of mold and her mom had gotten cancer and died from that. And it's just gut wrenching now when I look back to understand that mold likely contributed highly to that diagnosis, to that problem in her body. Right. So. So schools are awful. I have clients who are teachers or professors. Another one just let me know this week that her university found out that it's got a big mold problem and she wanted my input on what that means for her. And with her condition, I said, if I were you, I would not be going back. Because a giant problem like they found in that school and the way they were dealing with it sounded like it was just being propagated, like it was not under proper containment and it was going to create a big problem. And especially for someone who's already been mold sick and is well into recovery, you don't want to throw gasoline on that fire, right? So it's, it's. Schools are awful, universities are awful, daycares are awful. It's just so hard, especially when we have kids in here, because like you're trying to send your child to school to not miss out on their education and to have the sociability of school. And I know I'm way over my three minutes here, but it becomes a place that's harming them and setting them backwards. Now some parents will put, will buy a good air filter unit and put it in that class and just go to the teacher and say, hey, you know, her son Jimmy is sensitive to mold. I suspect there could be mold or don't even say that. Just say, hey, I want to do this just for his, you know, health issues. Don't say the M word if you don't want to. In case someone gets defensive about, oh no, I've got a clean classroom and put a unit in there by Jimmy's desk, hopefully somewhere that he can benefit the most. But at the same time, you're kind of scooping the ocean out with a tablespoon. Like, is it enough to help if that room's door is closed and you have some sort of control, but at the same time it's got that cold air return and then the heating or cooling coming in. It's always exchanging air. Are you really, you know, if it works, great. If you can afford to put one in there, do it. It's just a tough situation and I don't have the answer because just like any building, it has to be remediated and treated properly. But I just want to make sure you guys know and are aware that if you're seeing a pattern with your child or if you're staff at a school and you feel worse at work that they're notorious for mold because of the flat roofs and the low budget and people that don't know to look for this stuff. So schools, portables, they're, they're very high on the list of most moldy places. So just be careful. I wish I had something to, to give you a shortcut that would fix all that, but I don't. It's just a matter of keep healing your body and keep staying away from exposure as much as you can. And for some kids, like our son Isaac, ended up being homeschooled because you combining the school stress with the mold of school stress, plus the, you know, the physiological physical problems of, of mold and mycotoxin, what they had done, we had the school from home that gave him another level of protection. So that's something as a parent you may have to think about coming up to. But as staff you have to decide if it's affecting you. If it's really bad, you have to decide if it's worth it or not because your health should be priority number one.
Alright, do you have questions about mold in your home or body? Book a consultation with Matt, AKA the Mold man, to guide your home and body to the next level of healing.
