North Country Union High School classes will move back inside after encouraging PCB results

After surprise PCB test results this summer forced North Country Union High School students to take some classes in tents, all classes will move back inside next week.

The news came after the latest round of test results, according to Chris Young, the school’s principal, who said levels of the toxins are now below the state’s “ immediate action level ” in 28 out of 33 classrooms and that the remaining five classrooms will still be able to be used after consultation with the Vermont Department of Health.

The school community met the news with excitement.

“Kids were high fiving each other, everyone is super happy to get back into the building,” Young said.

This summer, North Country engaged in a $5 million project to mitigate the school’s polychlorinated biphenyls, toxic chemicals associated with an array of negative health impacts. But the costly endeavor, paid for by the state, didn’t immediately have the intended outcome, and the district was forced to delay the start of school and move some classrooms outdoors.

Vermont’s first-in-the-nation PCB testing program requires all schools to be tested for the toxins if they were built or renovated before 1980. The initiative has upended school operations over the last few years, and leveraged millions of dollars for testing and mitigation projects that have had mixed results.

According to Matt Chapman, director of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation’s waste management and prevention division, the state has about $4.7 million of “unobligated funds … in various accounts” remaining for PCB related work.

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Chapman said there are six more schools in addition to North Country that are in the “planning or cleanup phases.” Those include Bellows Falls Union High School, Green Mountain Union High School, Hartford High School, Rutland Town School, SOAR in St. Albans and Twin Valley Elementary School.

To make up for limited classrooms, North Country utilized space at the nearby American Legion and classrooms at the Community College of Vermont’s Newport location, as well as the tents.

The arrangement led to increased time between classes — older students relished that freedom, according to Young, but some younger students struggled with it.

Shared classroom space also led to more teachers overlapping with each other.

“Everyone is reporting that it’s just very nice to see what people are doing,” Young said. “That’s been a really positive experience for people to be out of their normal departmental structure.”

With classes returning to normal, students and staff will have to readjust, according to the principal.

“We basically have to start the year over with new expectations,” Young said, “reset our systems, reset our culture.”

He credited the entire school community’s resilience, from students and staff, to parents and school board members.

“They not only made the best of a situation,” Young said, “but they really embraced the challenge and leaned into it, and were just incredibly supportive of one another.”

Now, the district will begin thinking long term about the future of the school: PCB abatement, renovation, even demolition.

“Everything’s on the table,” Young said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled North Country Union High School.

Read the story on VTDigger here: North Country Union High School classes will move back inside after encouraging PCB results .