News Photo by Julie Goldberg B-House at Alpena High School is closed this week because of concerns about asbestos found there last week.

ALPENA — Classes are not taking place in the B-House section of Alpena High School this week because of concerns over floor tile containing asbestos found last week.

A contractor working in the building was reported to have sanded the floor tile in the new Mechatronics & Amp Up course room without authorization from Alpena Public Schools.

Administration halted work immediately and arranged for Hernick Environmental, an environmental testing expert, to take air and dust samples to determine if there was any contamination. The samples were overnighted to a professional lab for expedited testing and the results were returned on Aug. 22. None of the air samples detected any asbestos, but asbestos was found in the dust samples, requiring abatement by industrial hygienists.

The area was quarantined and APS Superintendent John VanWagoner closed all of B-House until further notice.

“Whenever you have asbestos, you always want to be overly cautious,” AHS Principal Thomas Berriman said.

An industrial hygienist was in the high school Tuesday to complete additional air-sample testing to be on the safe side. Berriman said the district wants to be on the safe side because of how dangerous asbestos is.

“It’s caused a curveball in everything we have, especially with all the classes down in that area,” he said. “We have students from Hillman, Atlanta, and Alcona that are here in the morning and afternoon for the CTE (Career and Technical Education) courses and, unfortunately, they’re having to meet in alternate locations.”

All teachers from B-House got together last week and figured out a plan of where each class would be relocated. The classes are spread throughout the building. Berriman said the band and choir classes are taking place in the auditorium this week. Information was communicated to students by email and social media before school started on Monday.

“We had a little bit of some redirecting to do yesterday, and I think yesterday went really well with dealing with that curveball,” Berriman said.

Berriman said B-House will most likely be closed all of this week. He said APS is supposed to get some test results back on Tuesday for an update on the process, but the school has planned for B-House to be closed all week.

Berriman said it’s frustrating for the school to have B-House closed because the school did all the precautions for the construction of the new Mechatronics & Amp Up course.

“I’m more satisfied with the response of our staff and making sure the kids get into the classes and have somewhere to meet,” Berriman said. “It’s frustrating that we can’t use it. There may be some things down there that we may have to throw away, which is frustrating, but it is what it is and we’ll roll with it. It’s more frustrating that we’re not able to get down there and have classes going.”

Julie Goldberg can be reached at jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com or 989-358-5688.