Teacher sues school district over health concerns

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- An Estancia High School art teacher filed a lawsuit

against the Newport-Mesa Unified School District this week alleging that

poor air quality at the school has made her sick.

School district officials have not yet seen the lawsuit, but they have

been testing the school since complaints came in a year ago, said Mike

Fine, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services.

Before filing the lawsuit, teacher Christine Goodhue went to the

district with complaints that the air in her classroom was making her

ill.

She began the school year in September but has been out with a

workers’ compensation claim most of the year.

Goodhue could not be reached for comment Thursday. But Linda Mook,

president of the Newport-Mesa Federation of Teachers, said the union has

been working with Goodhue on the issue for more than a year.

“The union has had numerous concerns about the air quality at Estancia

and asked for testing, which has been partially completed,” Mook said.

“Additional testing is needed.”

The air ducts were extensively cleaned last summer after the initial

complaint came in and testing has ensued, Fine said.

But so far, he added, they have seen nothing wrong with the air.

“The basic issue is that she feels the air quality at that school had

some impact on her,” Fine said. “We’ve done some extensive testing,

cleaned air ducts, done some pretesting, post-testing. We’re not finding

anything unusual.”

But the teachers union is far from satisfied with what has been

completed.

“The union did hire an independent testing firm to monitor and analyze

the results on behalf of the staff there,” Mook said.

A task force of teachers also has been formed to assess the effect of

fumes in the various buildings and to gather any complaints, Mook said.

“The other thing we’ve requested from the district is that they do

testing throughout district schools on an ongoing basis,” she said.