Mold Closes Edison Elementary; Gainesville Students to Start Year Off Campus

Edison Elementary's youngest students in Gainesville will open the school year in borrowed classrooms around town, and later than the calendar first called for, after Gainesville ISD closed the campus over mold found in six rooms. The district said the closure took effect Aug. 6 and that Edison children would begin at temporary locations while the building stayed out of service.

An official Edison Elementary post said those locations would include First Baptist Church facilities, the Boys & Girls Club and Chalmers Elementary. Drop-off moves off the familiar campus for hundreds of Gainesville households. Edison serves prekindergarten through first grade, and the National Center for Education Statistics counted 630 students there in 2024-25.

Gainesville ISD said an indoor air quality assessment confirmed the problem. Five classrooms showed varying levels of Aspergillus and Penicillium, according to the district, and one tested positive for Stachybotrys, commonly called black mold.

The start date has moved more than once. The district's first notice pushed Edison's opening to Aug. 17. An Aug. 11 update said all Edison students would begin Tuesday, Aug. 18, while the district waited on results and readied rooms. Edison's own campus page lists the first day as Wednesday, Aug. 19, with Meet the Teacher set for Aug. 18 at Gainesville Junior High School.

By Aug. 11, the district said, the first five classrooms had finished remediation and passed follow-up air testing. Testing of the other 39 rooms was done, with results outstanding. On Aug. 13 Gainesville ISD said those final results were still pending and that district leaders would meet to decide next steps. No affected classroom returns to service, the district said, until post-remediation testing shows it meets acceptable environmental standards.

Gainesville ISD said the delay means three missed instructional days, and that it would seek a Texas Education Agency waiver so those days would not need to be made up.

Remediation covers cleaning the HVAC ductwork serving the affected areas, replacing carpet, replacing drywall where needed and stripping wallpaper, the district said, with testing before rooms reopen. Federal guidance points the same direction. EPA guidance for schools and commercial buildings calls moisture control the key to mold control and tells owners to clean up growth and fix its source, and CDC and NIOSH guidance tells building owners to repair water problems promptly and remove or clean contaminated materials.

Edison was already lined up for construction. The district's bond page places the campus in a Phase 1 window running from May 2026 through December 2027, with an eight-classroom addition, a gym built to double as a storm shelter, a larger cafeteria and new flooring among the planned work. The same phase adds eight classrooms each at Chalmers Elementary and Gainesville Intermediate. County election records show the May 3, 2025 election asked voters to authorize roughly $59 million for school buildings and security improvements; the district's election page says its board voted Feb. 10 to call for that approval.