CLOVIS (KMJ) — Clovis Unified School District said the decision to close Clovis East and Reyburn Intermediate Friday morning was a precautionary measure following a student’s decision to bring loose mercury onto campus.
“This appears to be a very inadvertent exposure,” explained the school district’s Kelly Avants. “There was not any intent. I think the students involved did not really understand the risks associated with it.”
The alert to officials was sent out after school had ended Thursday. It was a Reyburn Intermediate student who was first discovered with the mercury. Officials with Clovis Unified worked quickly to establish how far it had spread.
“Immediately containing that, but also discovering in the course of our investigation that he obtained it from another student who had brought some of that substance onto campus at Reyburn.”
The decision to close both Clovis East and Reyburn Intermediate was made with Fresno County Department of Public Heath and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“We did an initial assessment on campus and found just a handful of rooms that seemed to have some residual evidence of the substance having been in those rooms,” continued Avants.
“That requires cleanup, because we don’t want to leave that sitting there in the classroom.”
The decision to shut the doors was made to let crews have free reign of the campus to clean up.
Some parents arrived Friday morning expecting to drop their children off for school.
“There was an email that I saw last night that there was a mercury incident, but it did not say that there was going to be a school closure the following day,” said Reyburn Intermediate parent Andy Singh.
“It’s scary these kids are bringing this hazardous material into the school…it’s a dangerous material”
In a statement, Clovis Unified School District said contact has been made with the small number of students known to have come into contact with the mercury. There are currently no reports of anyone showing symptoms of exposure.
“There is a lot of it around in the community,” added Avants. “Just from residual grandfather clocks, thermometers, and things like that, and other industrial uses in the past. So it’s believed that it probably came into the possession of this student through a source such as that.”
Hear the report from KMJ’s Dominic McAndrew as it aired:
