NEWPORT, Vt. (WCAX) – As chilly weather approaches, North Country High School students and staff this week celebrated news that they will soon be able to return to their school building.
“When I announced that to students this week, there was a collective cheer, they were high-fiving each other in tents. So, everyone was just super excited to get back into classrooms,” said NCHS Principal Chris Young.
After starting the school year in tents due to high levels of PCBs, the building has now been cleared for use and students will be able to return on October 15.. It comes after four failed attempts to lower PCB levels through mitigation efforts over the summer.
Young says they had begun looking into modular classrooms if levels remained high into the winter. He says there are now other mitigation efforts they can take that aren’t as disruptive to ensure PCB levels remain low. “We’re pretty confident that once we’re in, we’re in, and that’s something that we’re gonna work hard with the state partners as well to make sure whatever other testing is gonna happen is not going to result in us having to vacate the building,” he said.
Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine says the health department sets its own guidelines for what is safe or unsafe and that they have not considered changing those despite elevated levels in some schools. “The science remains the science. So, we haven’t had to alter the guidelines that we set up from the start of the testing program,” he said.
Levine says the health department has been able to accommodate school needs as they undergo remediation and mitigation to allow re-occupancy.