An article in Thursday's editions about Riverside Elementary School incorrectly stated the deadline for installing carbon monoxide monitors in the Joppatowne school. School officials told parents the monitors would be installed by yesterday.
The Sun regrets the error.
After 40 angry Joppatowne parents and children picketed Riverside Elementary School yesterday, Harford County officials agreed to fix the school's leaky roof and its faulty heating and cooling system.
"We got what we needed," said parent Megan Dove, who helped organize the demonstration. She was picketing at the school with her daughter, Ashley, a red-headed fourth-grader.
Ashley and her schoolmates have endured many problems at Riverside this year. She and other children often have had to wear their winter coats to keep warm during class. They've had to dodge 5-gallon buckets left throughout the school to catch water dripping from the ceiling. On Jan. 25, a faulty chimney fan sent nonpoisonous fumes through the main building, making some teachers and students nauseated. And Feb. 3, a natural gas leak in a kindergarten annex made some people feel sick.
"The fumes were unbelievable," said Beth Munley, a kindergarten teacher at the school. "I had been having incredible headaches." Both of those leaks have been fixed.
Yesterday's protest was organized after parents were upset by the failure of school officials to install carbon monoxide monitors at the school Wednesday, even though Harford school Superintendent Ray R. Keech and school board President Ronald R. Eaton had promised to do so at a PTA meeting Tuesday night.
The meeting, attended by about 200 parents and several teachers, was scheduled to discuss the school's maintenance problems. It was then that some parents said they feared their children may have been exposed to carbon monoxide from the defective heating and cooling units. "It didn't make anybody feel safe," Mrs. Dove said.
No traces of carbon monoxide, which can cause headaches and nausea in mild doses, were found inside the school yesterday.
The picketing "certainly heightened everyone's awareness," said Larry V. Klimovitz, county administrator. "We're taking the initiative and working with the [school] board to come up with the money now."
Donald R. Morrison, Harford schools spokesman, said the school system had requested funds to repair Riverside but money necessary from the county and state had not been available for the last four years. The cost of a new roof and heating and cooling units for the 26-year-old school will be $900,000, he said.
According to Riverside Principal Beretta Goodwin, 177 of the school's 594 students were not in school yesterday. On an average day, about 5 percent, or 30 students, are absent.
After the parents began picketing, school and county officials, personnel from Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.; the Harford County Health Department; county HazMat; and Trane Air Conditioning, a Timonium contractor that services the school's seven rooftop heating and cooling units, descended on the school to test for gas leaks and examine equipment.
"All our readings were zero" for carbon monoxide, said James W. Terrell, chief of the county's Emergency Operations Center.
Nancy Hooper Caplan, a BGE spokeswoman, said its representative also had found no safety problems. After taking indoor air samples yesterday, Joe DeLizia, an environmental sanitarian with the county health department, said, "Things were fine at the time."
And to offer more reassurance to parents, school officials installed 41 carbon monoxide monitors at the school, Mr. Morrison said.
"As soon as I got certification that the school was safe, I took my daughter back to school," said Cindy Mateer, who had been a student at the school when it opened in 1968. Megan Mateer is a fourth-grader at the school.
"I love the school and the teachers. You can't find a better school. We just need it to be safe."