Mold at Ludlow: Did the Administration Grow It?

Recently the Ludlow main entrance was closed and the office space evacuated, after staff became aware of mold growth in late January. Now dehumidifiers run 24 hours a day, carpets are torn out, plastic sheets laid down, and doors to other parts of the school are taped off. Parents and teachers have been told to expect this area will be out of use for the remainder of the school year.

It’s prudent to be cautious about mold, especially at a school where vulnerable young children learn and staff spends a good part of their waking hours. But the original building is 104 years old – these things leak, right? So why did this problem arise at the tiny 450 sq. ft. addition that’s nearly the only new construction on the project?

Problems like these take time to investigate, and from an outside perspective we’re not privy to details. But it’s likely the answer lies in the schedule of construction. For new buildings, the ordinary sequence is to construct the building shell early in the sequence. The walls and roof are put in place, then interior system and finish work are completed over time within the stable environment of a weather-protected building envelope.

Construction progresses on the Ludlow Vestibule, August 19, 2025, just weeks before the school opened to students. Masonry work continued well past the start of the school year.

What happened?

At this part of Ludlow, things went differently. A large hole in the exterior wall, maybe 12 feet wide and 20 feet high, was cut sometime around early February to allow the stairs to be reworked. But the walls of the new entry didn’t start to go up until mid-July, and the roof not until late August. This vestibule was still not publicly usable until October, well after the start of the Pre-K year even with their two-week delay in opening. So what might have happened? Several possibilities come to mind:

1. This area was unenclosed for six months, left open to snow, wind, and rain with limited protection. Building materials like thick historic masonry walls can act like sponges, absorbing a reservoir of water. Ordinarily these assemblies would have time to dry out over a period of months before mold food sources like drywall and carpet were installed. Here, these sensitive materials appear to have been installed almost overnight.

   
   

2. The roof went on in a hurry. Delays in construction had already meant that workers had been putting in evening and weekend overtime for months. This space was still open to the sky when teachers were already supposed to be in the building. It’s harder for anyone to do their best, most careful work when they’re rushed and tired, roofers are no different.

   
   

3. Gutters directly above this area hadn’t yet been replaced. While they’d been re-worked elsewhere, this area was deferred to keep out of the way of the new vestibule construction. After the school opened, scaffolding was re-installed around this end of the building and this copper replacement was ongoing above active Pre-K classrooms and this office area. It’s not hard to imagine challenges in keeping these complicated built-in copper gutters watertight over occupied spaces during the process.

So what does this have to do with the administration? Wouldn’t this have been an error by a worker, the construction manager, the architect? Any of those by themselves or in combination are reasonable guesses. But at the heart of it, the schedule conditions that created risky conditions had roots in how the project was managed. Before construction started, the Facilities Advisory Committee raised concerns that the project design was not progressing with adequate urgency, and this author met with the Superintendent in May 2024 conveying that the timeline already appeared to be lagging. Yet the project plodded on slowly and did not clear city planning and design review hurdles until December 2024, holding up the start of renovations until January.

A further impediment to regular progression of the work was the delay in making decisions about windows. Ludlow had retained aged single-pane windows, a poor fit for the energy efficiency and comfort desired in a 21^st century sustainable school environment. Replacing these with modern higher-performing windows was the right call, but the administration held the decision until mid-April. This not only incurred additional logistical costs beyond the $473,827 upgrade, but threw other work out of sequence as they waited months for window delivery.

Did administrators turn on a hose and flood the Ludlow vestibule and office? Of course not. But the end result may be the similar. Issues like these can be challenging to resolve, sometimes contentious, and some added costs will almost certainly be incurred by contractors. But while they bear some of those risks, the disruption that results will fall on preschoolers, teachers, and families. To the extent that project management played a role in this outcome, the administration has some ownership.