Chemistry teacher Emily Hoover relocated her sixth period class from her Chemistry classroom due to an odor on Thursday, November 29, 2018.

In room D202, around five minutes into sixth period, a student in Hoover’s Honors Chemistry class, Sydney Hampston, told Hoover about the odor, who alerted the office after waiting a couple of minutes.

“If you stood in the room you felt like you were inhaling chemicals you should not be inhaling,” Hoover said. She then described the odor as being something like really hot electronics.

Hampston said the odor smelled like “paint mixed with nail polish remover.”

Immediately after Hoover called the office, Brian Matthews, a school custodian and maintenance man, was sent to investigate the source of the odor. He checked out the outlets, windows, corner, and ceiling in the back right corner of the room since that was where the odor seemed to be coming from. Matthews was unable to find the source at that time.

A group from Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) came up to investigate next. They wondered if anything was happening outside, but nothing was. They discovered the odor was nontoxic.

Before leaving, HVAC told Hoover to contact them if the odor dissipated or got stronger.

Fifteen minutes had gone by, and Hoover decided to relocate her class to the lab next door just to be careful. The odor was causing some students’ heads to hurt, and they were supposed to take a test that day.

Hoover propped open her classroom door to try and get rid of the odor, but when she checked after her lab period, the odor had grown stronger.

“It even seeped into the hallway below,” Hoover said. The teachers in the downstairs D hallway noticed it and had sent Dr. Winslow to investigate.

At the beginning or seventh period Hoover called the office again, and they sent the HVAC team.

The HVAC team hypothesized that the odor was coming from the lights, but they didn’t know exactly what was wrong.

As of Friday, November 30, the source of the odor was still unknown.

There was no odor in the lab or in any of the other classrooms, and Hoover decided to remain in the lab whenever it was open until the odor dissipated.

Even with the fan on and the windows cracked open all of Friday, the odor lingered and Hoover was still in the lab on Monday, December 3.

Ultimately, HVAC workers discovered the corroding wires in the electrical sockets were the cause of the odor, and three outlets were replaced.

The others will have to be replaced within a few years, but the odor dissipated enough by Tuesday, December 4 that Hoover was able to return to her classroom.