Madison Park

Findings released in CMS building investigation after several employees diagnosed with cancer – WSOC TV

By Allison Latos, wsoctv.comMay 24, 2022 at 5:53 pm EDT

CHARLOTTE — A federal probe into health concerns at a Charlotte-Mecklenburg school building is finally over.

For 15 months, Channel 9′s Allison Latos has been investigating the Smith Family Center and whether it could be linked to cancer cases among teachers and staff.

The building off Tyvola Road still sits empty, no longer packed with students or staff. But the minds of many former and current Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools employees like Principal Ynez Olshausen have been full of questions -- wondering if working there is what caused their cancer.

Initially, CMS declined an outside investigation offered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and planned to demolish the building and sell the site. After Latos’s reporting and growing criticism, CMS changed course and accepted an offer from federal officials to look into the growing concerns.

We’ve heard from more than a dozen people who are worried working there could have led to their cancer diagnoses. Now, we have the results of the federal investigation.

NIOSH officials never visited the Smith Family Center in person, but said an industrial hygienist reviewed existing reports on radon, asbestos, drinking water, air testing, indoor environmental quality assessments, CMS policies and HVAC-related records.

Officials also conducted medical interviews of CMS employees diagnosed with cancer, but only talked to those who worked at Smith Family Center in 2021 before the building closed. Olshausen had already retired.

NIOSH said, “No significant hazardous exposures were identified, and employees are unlikely to have any exposure or concerning levels of exposure to cancer-causing substances in the workplace.”

It was annouced last year they would tear down building and sell the property!

Channel 9 asked CMS if the district still plans to tear down the building and sell the property and we were told the facility is no longer considered surplus. They’ll work with the Board of Education to decide what will happen with it.

My opinion they need to tear the old building down and put in some parking lanes for all the traffic that the neighborhood gets on Londonderry moving it over to CMS property for pickups and drop offs!  

Bad enough they put a road directly behind the homes on the even side of the street on Londonderry coming off Tyvola that has traffic and people behind their homes 7 days a week making noise and driving past the rear of their homes.    The people for the most part did not buy their homes with a road behind their houses with traffic and bus traffic rumbling behind the rear of their homes.