It was conceived in the early 1990s as a flagship “mega school” at the heart of a massive reform of public education in Bermuda. But CedarBridge Academy, badly built and never properly looked after according to a hard-hitting report released last week, has proved to be a disastrous environment for many staff and students and a public relations nightmare for Government.A decade and a half after the multi-million dollar facility on the site of the former Devonshire Academy was first proposed, the state of the school has become the subject of relentless scrutiny.

Its shoddy environment is alleged to have caused one student to almost die from respiratory failure and at least 13 others to fall ill. An unknown number of teachers and other members of staff claim it has made them sick, with some threatening legal action.

The Prospect school cost more than $55 million to construct but within three years of it opening some staff were raising concerns about “suspect air”.

Little did they know back in 2000 that it would take more than six years for the cause of that suspect air to be officially acknowledged as mould infestation.

Education Minister Randy Horton shut down CedarBridge Academy on November 1 last year due to environmental health concerns and ordered a probe into the circumstances leading to the closure to begin two months later.

That inquiry, led by overseas environment expert Kamoji Wachiira, uncovered a litany of mistakes and neglect dating back 13 years which are only now being corrected.

The three-member inquiry panel found that numerous warning signs — described as “canaries in the mine” — were ignored, allowing the ever-increasing mould to take hold of the building.

The origins of the crisis lie in the “troubled design and construction” of CedarBridge in the mid-1990s, according to the Wachiira Report. The panel found that more than five different firms were involved, with contractors expected to sign off works themselves on the basis of self-inspection.

Some interviewees told the panel that the type of roof and masonry walls — incorporated as traditional Bermudian features — were inadvisable and have affected the moisture resistance of the school ever since. In addition, there appears to have been no fire safety inspection for the south and north blocks.

“Had this been done, one possible act of omission — fire stops left open or unsealed — which affects air balance and increases condensation and hence mold growth, would have been caught early on,” says the report.

CedarBridge was originally designed without an air conditioning system but a year into construction it was decided to include one. The resulting system was a mess and leaks and condensation from it have since been pinpointed as the cause of “the greatest source of unwanted moisture and dampness on ceiling and walls”.

The system has been allowed to degrade over the years into a “terrible and unacceptable state of disrepair” and, although it was designed to run continuously, it was turned off during weekends and summers, allowing mould to thrive.

Critically, a proper maintenance plan for CedarBridge was never in place from the beginning and still did not exist by the time the panel concluded its probe in March this year.

The report says that at least $2.5 million a year should have been set aside in the annual Government budget to maintain the building. Instead, the board of governors’ repeated requests for more money were refused by the Ministry of Education.

Ross Smith, the former facilities manager responsible for looking after the 200,000 square-foot facility, was found by the panel not to have the qualifications needed for the job.

The original plans for the school have been lost, along with instruction manuals and maintenance schedules. Repair crews brought into the school have to “wing it” and few records exist on work done over the years.

Principal Kalmar Richards told the panel she delegated responsibility for facilities to one of her deputies; he reported that he was unsure of his role.

All this would be bad enough, but worse is that teachers who spent hours each day in this badly cared for facility and who suspected the environment was making them sick appear not to have been taken seriously by those above them.

“The CBA administration seemed to deny over a long period that there were any serious IAQ (indoor air quality) or mold problems,” says the report, adding that this unfortunate attitude meant that warnings of a “looming crisis” were missed.

Even when management began to investigate concerns, a lack of communication to teachers meant the rumour mill went into overdrive.

Mr. Horton told the House of Assembly on Friday: “We must accept that there are major issues with the flow of information to and from the school. The lack of effective communication pertains not just to concerns about the indoor air quality issues, but also to the general operations of schools.”

A July 2006 report from Texas-based laboratory Microbiology Specialists Inc., which called for a cleanup of the school over the summer, was leaked to The Royal Gazette <$>in November, after the school had closed.

The Wachiira report says the Microbiology document helped create a “climate of fear, almost panic” and has since been denounced as “unnecessarily alarming” by other experts.

But the panel found that it at least helped to awaken the authorities to a potentially serious situation. Perhaps more crucial was the part played by Rosemary Tyrrell, former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Education.

An asthma sufferer, she suffered two attacks while visiting CedarBridge and it was she who advised Mr. Horton to close the school.

“The panel believes that the PS’s personal vulnerability should be viewed as (a) genuine indicator of the reality...for many occupants in positions of less authority to express it,” says the report. “Suddenly they now had a senior manager experiencing the same symptoms as themselves.”

But mistakes continued to be made, even after the well-intentioned closure by the Education Minister. The initial plan to clean 25 rooms at a cost of about $15,000 each was forgotten as cleaning companies widened the scope of the work.

The report says: “After closure, the entire school space was to be cleaned whether infested or not.” Despite this, the panel concluded that the $4 million cleanup only amounted to a “quick abatement” to allow students to return to CedarBridge in January.

Five months after the school reopened, it is still not known conclusively that health problems suffered by staff and students were caused by the mould infestation.

But the panel members, who interviewed 14 students and at least 42 teachers, said: “In almost all cases, affected individuals claimed to feel much relief once they left the CBA environs during evenings, weekends and holidays. This one common denominator seemed to link their symptoms to presence on the CBA premises — sometimes to specific rooms.”

If the crisis has had any positive effect it is that, as Mr. Horton said on Friday, “lessons have been learned”. Work to repair faults with the building will be carried out; a maintenance programme will be put in place; the school’s board of governors has assumed greater responsibility; a properly qualified facilities manager will be sought and communication will be improved.

But whether any of those things will provide comfort to those still sick or forced to leave their jobs at the school — such as the pregnant teacher worried for the health of her unborn child — remains to be seen.