State, feds join search for school rash cause

Middle school pupils are back in class today, but not in their building.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
BELOIT -- State and federal agencies will join the West Branch school district in searching for the cause of a red, itchy rash that has caused school officials to close the Beloit Elementary School and West Branch Middle School again today.
Dr. Scott R. Weingart, superintendent, said state health officials and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will join the effort in testing the elementary school for the cause of the rash that sent 35 pupils and two adults to area hospitals Thursday. All were treated and released.
Matthew Stefanak, Mahoning County health commissioner, said the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, also will be involved.
The 250 elementary pupils have another day off today, but the middle school pupils, about 600 children in grades six through eight, are in class, although not in their building.
They were to report to the high school where space has been arranged to accommodate them today, Weingart said.
The district is working on plans to resume classes for the elementary pupils but hadn't found an appropriate location for them as of Tuesday afternoon, he said.
The elementary and middle school are in separate wings but share some common areas, and health officials asked that they be given access to the complete four-year-old elementary/middle school complex today for testing purposes, Weingart said.
The rash hadn't surfaced in either of the district's other two elementary buildings or the high school.
Relatively harmless
The good news is that the rash doesn't appear to be serious, is noninfectious, not contagious and responds to normal treatment for that type of irritation, Weingart said. It broke out on children's arms, backs and chests, he said.
The bad news is that it keeps coming back.
The district closed all its schools Friday and gave them all a thorough cleaning with a hospital-grade cleaner, Weingart said.
County health officials as well as the county HazMat team inspected the building Thursday and found no source for whatever irritant apparently caused the rash that affected the pupils, primarily fourth-graders but also a couple of middle school pupils as well as an aide and a teacher.
They were back to test the building Sunday, and again found no toxic substance that might have caused the problem, Weingart said, prompting school officials to decide to have classes Monday.
However, 11 of the 35 pupils affected Thursday came down with the rash again Monday, prompting the closing of the building again for Tuesday and today, he said.
Makeup days to be determined
"We will have to take this day by day until we decide the best course of action," Weingart said, noting that a decision on makeup days for time lost hasn't been decided.
The district has used its calamity days normally reserved for bad weather, he said, adding that any required makeup days would be added at the end of the school year.
Tara Light of Beloit, who has a son in the middle school and another in the high school, said she has concerns.
"If it's contagious, I have a 21/2-year-old at home, and I don't want it carried home," she said.
Neither of her school-age children have developed the rash, she said.
Jack Massalsky of Beloit has a granddaughter in the seventh grade and a grandson in the second grade. Neither of them have come down with the rash, either.
He said that he was surprised to learn of the rash recurrence Monday after the schools were cleaned but that he believes district officials are doing all they can to resolve the problem.
Weingart said the EPA is bringing in more sophisticated equipment to search for the cause.
He noted that no school employees involved in the cleaning process developed any rash.
Possible explanation
Dr. Kenneth M. Lloyd, a board-certified dermatologist with a practice in Boardman, said children are more susceptible to skin irritation in winter because the heat is on in buildings, the humidity is low and their skin gets dry.
Children don't have the large oil glands in their skin that adults possess and can be more prone to skin irritations that can cause inflammation, he said.
He also pointed out another possible scenario.
Once someone gets a rash and it becomes a big deal, others may develop similar symptoms in a form of mass hysteria that can be fairly common, Dr. Lloyd said.
Stefanak said there was a rash outbreak in schools in 25 states in 2001, and, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that a virus was responsible in about a half-dozen of those states, it found that mass hysteria was likely responsible in most of the others.
gwin@vindy.com