First week of school was full of hiccups in many districts

If rain on your wedding day is good luck, then mold canceling the first day of schools means ... nothing.

Except a longer summer vacation and the headache of rescheduling lost instructional time. That's how six Eastern Iowa schools greeted the 2010-11 school year.

Four schools - Regina Catholic Education Center in Iowa City, St. Jude Catholic School in Cedar Rapids, West Branch Middle School in West Branch and Washington Junior High School in Washington, Iowa - delayed the start of the school year because of mold.

'We've had a really wet summer, a really humid summer, and that can impact our buildings,' said Ruby Perin, Healthy Homes Coordinator for Linn County Public Health.

At Linn-Mar's Excelsior Middle School, all but six classrooms were ready the first day of school because of mold.

The Springville school district opened in time, but administrators sent students home early the second day of classes after mold was discovered in some elementary school classrooms.

Perin said the mold problems were related to the weather or water leaks within the facilities - prime mold producing factors.

The summer's rain also caused a headache for Linn-Mar High School.

With construction on 10th Street still in progress, the first day of school meant only one entrance in and out of the high school. The city had planned to have 10th Street construction finished before classes started Aug. 18, but Mother Nature didn't get the memo.

Marion City Engineer Dan Whitlow said the street should be open to traffic in the next few weeks.

Road construction was a headache for several Iowa City school buses, especially those along the Highway 965 route in North Liberty. Some buses ran late the first day of classes, but it was a car accident on Melrose Avenue that made several students late at West High School - days after the school's phone and Internet service were temporarily shut down by hungry squirrels.

The animals chewed through a fiber optics line on the west side of campus days before classes began, causing the school to go offline. The district's technology crew got things up and running again within hours.

Wrapping up the list of odd things that happened the first day of school is what didn't happen, or wasn't available, at the new Garner Elementary School in North Liberty: Pencil sharpeners. A complete set of wastebaskets. And a playground.

Principal Mindy Paulsen said the pencil sharpeners, which were on back-order, arrived the second day of school.

So did the wastebaskets.

The playground will take longer to resolve.