Students returned without incident to Maiden Choice School in Arbutus yesterday, as the Baltimore County school system released test results showing the elevated asbestos levels that forced the school's closure last week.
The 51-year-old school reopened after a cleanup that reduced asbestos levels to within federal standards, according to the most recent tests.
"My daughter was in school, and there wasn't any problem at all," Nancy Spurrier, the PTA treasurer, said yesterday. A school spokesman said attendance was normal.
Maiden Choice, which serves 120 students with special needs, was closed last week after a work crew preparing to remove asbestos as part of a $2 million maintenance project accidentally released the material. The release, which was detected Nov. 23, might have occurred Nov. 20, when the crew opened a hole in the school's west-side hallway.
Students attended class the next day. Some might have been exposed to asbestos fibers, county school officials said. School was closed Nov. 22.
School officials stressed that brief exposure to relatively low levels of the material would not cause health problems.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has set acceptable airborne asbestos levels at a maximum of 70 structures per square millimeter. Yesterday, the school system released a half-inch-thick packet of test results showing levels inside the school after the release was detected.
EMSL Analytical of Beltsville and Advanced Air Analysis of Owings Mills conducted the tests.
According to air tests taken Nov. 23, asbestos levels in the hallway area beside the hole measured 2,481 structures per square millimeter. Down the hall, the level was 1,938 structures per square millimeter.
Two days later, tests found levels at 484 and 299 structures per square millimeter in two classrooms down the hall from the hole. The level inside the classroom where the hole was made was 199 structures per square millimeter.
Tests taken after the cleanup found asbestos levels within the federal standard.
"Every place that was tested and came up dirty, if you will, was retested and came up clean," said Douglas J. Neilson, a school system spokesman.
While the school was closed last week, crews removed all of the asbestos that was to be extracted this year as part of the maintenance project.
No parents called a hot line that the school system set up Sunday afternoon to answer questions about asbestos, Neilson said.