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Lakota Local superintendent highlights mold, overcrowding and plumbing problems at Adena Elementary
Summary
Lakota Local Schools Superintendent Ashley Whiteley toured Adena Elementary and highlighted cramped classroom space created by makeshift partitions, mold found on teacher desks that prompted air-quality testing, portable dehumidifiers in use and ongoing plumbing issues that previously closed cafeteria restrooms.
Ashley Whiteley, superintendent of Lakota Local Schools, led a walkthrough of Adena Elementary to show community members the school’s current facility conditions.
During the tour, a staff member described how the building’s innovation hub — normally used by teachers for projects and guest programming — has been partitioned into roughly three mini-classrooms to accommodate two reading-intervention groups and a gifted-intervention specialist. "We have about 3 mini classrooms happening within here in addition to teachers that want to use the innovation hub," the staff member said, underscoring reduced space for shared programming.
The staff member told Whiteley that teachers had previously reported air-quality concerns and that testing increased after a teacher returned over the summer to find "all of her desks were filled with mold on the, like, exposed, particle board, like, furry green." That discovery, the staff member said, prompted broader inspections and placed Adena on a rotation for air-quality checks. Whiteley confirmed the building is one of eight in the district receiving testing for circulation and HVAC issues.
To manage indoor moisture, the school has added portable dehumidifiers. "We're having to put in 2 dehumidifiers, which I mean, I love that she's tried to mask it as a little friend in the classroom, but certainly children are aware that they have some new elements in their classroom," Whiteley said.
Space constraints extend beyond the innovation hub. The staff member said the restrooms adjacent to the cafeteria have only two stalls each, and noted the building serves about 725 students, making restroom access tight and complicating efforts to minimize instructional time lost to restroom breaks. The staff member also pointed out plumbing problems in the art area and said some cafeteria restrooms were shut down for almost an entire school year in the past; staff are currently "waiting on that to get fixed," the staff member said.
Whiteley concluded the walkthrough by reiterating the district’s goal in inviting community members to visit facilities so they can see the conditions firsthand. School staff described remediation steps under way, including testing and temporary dehumidification; the transcript records no specific repair timeline or named contractor responsible for the plumbing fixes.
