The mold at Banfield Elementary has been cleaned up. The children are back in the classrooms.

But the dozen parents who came to an informational meeting about the mold Monday wanted to know why it happened.

Two representatives from the Institute for Environmental Health spoke about the mold and how it was handled and took questions from the parents.

Melanie Miland's daughter, Taylor, suffers from allergies and was in one of the second grade classrooms earlier this year. She said she noticed that Taylor's symptoms were worsening at the beginning of the school year and took her to the doctor.

"Actually that's how we kind of knew something was going on," she said.

The doctor changed Taylor's prescription and soon afterwards, Miland and her husband found out about the mold problem.

School officials first suspected a problem Aug. 13, said Arif Quraishi, of the Institute for Environment Health, or IEH. IEH took samples and began a four-week testing process. On Sept. 18, IEH confirmed the presence of mold and children were moved out of the classrooms Sept. 24. The cleaning up process began Sept. 27.

Miland asked why they were not informed of the possible problem sooner. She said the school could have told parents about the possibility of mold and then parents could have report any health problems in their children.

Superintendent Corrine Johnson said it took school officials by surprise. They did not want to tell parents about the possibility and then have to wait on moving them until they knew there was an actual mold problem.

"Unfortunately it took some time to get the test results back," she said. "As soon as we did they made recommendations and we moved them right away.

"I'm sorry if we didn't act quickly enough. We really did try to act quickly, but prudently. The health and safety of everyone was uppermost in everyone's mind."

A few people asked about the other classrooms and the possibility of mold traveling through the air. Quraishi said there was only a slim chance of that happening.

One mother said her son had been told not to drink from the drinking fountain or touch the walls, but neither school officials or IEH consultants said students had been told that.

Krista Hawley asked if any other rooms besides the recent five had been tested for mold. She said last year, her son's first grade classroom had mold problems and she wanted to know if they were going to remove carpet from all the classrooms.

Johnson said the school replaces carpet in two rooms each year, but may start replacing the carpet with tile. However, tile floors have disadvantages because children can slip on them and it's harder for teachers to stand on during the day.

Monday was also the deadline for all district teachers to turn in voluntary surveys about any problems with mold, ventilation systems or other pollutants in their classrooms. IEH will take those surveys and inspect the rooms that seem to have problems, said Shannon Docken, of IEH.

The money for the testing and clean-up process comes from a fund set aside by the school for health situations, Johnson said.

Cari Quam can be reached at 434-2235 or by e-mail at cari.quam@austindailyherald.com