Members of the central administration, athletic department and the Temple High School administration will be available for questions from parents and community members.
After a swim meet with an Austin area high school on Oct. 9, several of the visiting students complained of hair loss, skin irritation and illness. Since then parents have said their children have reported hair loss, respiratory problems, skin conditions and nausea after using the pool. The Bell County Health District completed tests on Wednesday and found the water to be within safety limits.
When asked if the water quality is a cause for concern, Interim Superintendent Dr. Dana Marable said, “I’m always concerned when anybody says there’s anything wrong with the schools and something wrong with what we’re doing with children.”
“That’s why as soon as we heard anything about it we began testing not only ourselves, but asking for outside help from the city and from a private organization,” she said. “None of the tests have come back indicating anything except that the water was fine. But we’re still concerned, and I know parents are, and want to find out exactly what their concerns are.”
She said the district is at a loss to explain the strange symptoms, and have not had any students report to the nurse with illnesses related to the pool.
“If the chemical tests from us and the city and the outside people all say it’s OK, we don’t know what else to attack,” she said. “Obviously our coaches are in the pool every day, probably more than the kids, but if there is a problem, and there must be a problem or there would not be as much concern, we need to take it all seriously.”
When asked if testing would be stepped up to daily checks, she said “We test every day now.”
“We did go ahead and borrow a different kind of testing procedure from the city and we have ordered one of those,” she said. “It wasn’t a costly item, it was just a matter of nobody saying we needed it.”
Marable said the reason the problem was not addressed sooner was none of the reports of sick swimmers reached the administration.
“I don’t who they communicated with but they did not call me nor any of the people here in this office, nor did they call the high school principal,” Dr. Marable said. “Maybe in their worry they just didn’t know that was who they needed to tell. I don’t know if they told the coach or he understood the severity of it.”
“We can only solve problems when we know they exist and we were not aware there was a problem,” she said. “We have had no reports of the kinds of things that we’ve heard about, but we still care. We want to find out what’s wrong and we want to correct it.”
The reason for the meeting according to Dr. Marable is for the district to work as partners with the community to answer questions and assuage concerns about the pool.
Dr. Marable says there is a silver lining.
“Good things come from this kind of thing. Now the parents know that if they have a problem they need to tell us right away before it gets bad.”
kchandler@temple-telegram.com
