In Potomac, Portable Classrooms Are a Persistent Headache

A few weeks into the school year, Greer Dellafiora's daughter began to come home from Portable 4 "shaking, big circles under her eyes, crying" from headaches so severe that she could barely move.

"I'd put her on the couch, and by the end of the evening she would be better and do her homework and go to bed. The next day, it would all happen again," Dellafiora said.

They took her for body scans. Doctors reported a buildup of fluid on her brain. The cause was hard to pinpoint.

Parents said they didn't connect their children's symptoms to their classrooms until a PTA meeting in January, when Dellafiora stood up and told the group that her daughter had been sick all year.

"I think we all kind of looked at each other and said, 'Oh my God,' " said Marion Cantor, mother of a fifth-grader who was in a class with other students who complained of health problems.

Although parents and school officials disagree on whether the air in the portables is to blame for the respiratory complaints, a consensus is growing that water has seeped into the buildings. The school system has agreed to have an occupational health doctor interview staff and parents who reported symptoms and prove or refute the link to mold.

The portables at Bells Mill remain among the most visited classrooms in Maryland these days, hosting a parade of school board members, lawmakers and reporters.

"Everyone has said that we have to prove we're different from everybody else," Cantor said. "There must be a lot of really sick children out there, if we are the same as everybody else."

Staff writer Lori Aratani contributed to this report.