The Arthur A. Richards K-8 School will be closed on Friday, February 28 until the source of an odor affecting the campus’s air quality has been identified and mitigated, according to a release from the Department of Education. The school system iis conducting a series of assessments and will notify students, parents and staff when the campus will reopen.
This is the latest in a long string of V.I government office closings, almost alway schools and generally on St. Croix, due to mysterious smells, going back a decade. The sources of the odor is often difficult to determine. St. Croix Central High shut down for several days in November due to a mysterious odor. John H. Woodson Jr. High School closed in January of 2019 for a mysterious odor. Central High also closed multiple times in 2014 due to a smell. That smell, which led to large numbers of staff going to the hospital, was eventually linked to a leak from a buried sewer line. Multiple other schools and government offices have also been dismissed due to odors from 2003 to present.
According to the Education Department, officials decided late Thursday night to close the school after crews worked well into the evening to identify the source of the odor that has caused some students and staff to say they are ill.