Judge Rules in Favor of Alleghany County School Board
Covington Middle School to Remain Open | By Jennifer Bailey
Staff Writer | Covington, VA (Apr. 23, 2025)— An emergency injunction was recently filed by John P. Fishwick Jr. alongside several other attorneys representing 11 parents of Covington Middle School students. The injunction was to request the immediate closure of Covington Middle School for the remainder of the school year, moving instead to virtual learning. It also requested a stop on truancy actions toward parents who wished to keep their children home. On Wednesday morning, after about two and a half hours of hearing testimonies, Judge Ed Stein ruled against both injunctions.
To remind readers, students were recently evacuated from Covington Middle School on January 31, 2025, after an "unrecognizable odor" was reported. Under the advisement of Covington Public Works, the students were then relocated to the Covington Recreation Center near the school. The "unrecognizable odor" was later determined to be the result of a kitchen stove, run on natural gas, that was not burning off that gas efficiently, thus causing carbon monoxide to be released into the air.
As a result, the school was shut down and moved to virtual learning until March 18. During that time, Alleghany County Public Schools (ACPS), under the direction of Superintendent Kim Halterman, hired Chris Chapman and his team at ECS Mid-Atlantic for air quality tests and inspections. Chapman has been the Director of Industrial Hygiene at ECS Mid-Atlantic for a number of years and has been in the field of industrial hygiene for 37 years. According to Chapman's testimony on Wednesday morning, several tests were conducted and included his findings of three water leaks, a faulty roof unit that was not introducing new, fresh air into the school, and small levels of both carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). He stated it would be an extreme decision to close the school and it was not his recommendation.
However, four parents took the stand in disagreement with Chapman. According to Brittany Behrens, a substitute teacher for several schools in the area including Covington Middle School, her child experienced headaches, fatigue, and wanted to go to bed as soon as he got home. Behrens also stated her son improved during the winter break.
Three other parents offered similar testimonies regarding their children, citing they had their children tested for carboxyhemoglobin, which is described by the national library of medicine as "complex formed within red blood cells when hemoglobin is exposed to carbon monoxide, subsequently binding to hemoglobin with an affinity 200 times that of oxygen."
When it came time for closing arguments, the attorney representing Alleghany County Public Schools, C. Rodney Young II, cited that the plaintiffs failed to legally prove causation against the school for the children's symptoms and that it would "be no easy process" to move them to Clifton Academy. Young also noted that the main issue at Covington Middle School, as cited by ECS Mid-Atlantic, was the faulty roof unit that was repaired before the children returned to school on the 18th of March. Therefore, he requested that the judge deny the injunction and keep Covington Middle School open.
Fishwick disagreed, citing that there could be irreparable damage to the children and teachers who are experiencing symptoms. He requested that the judge immediately close Covington Middle School until the end of the school year, citing that the ACPS "gave the all-clear sign on March 18, but then moved kids around the classrooms, so it wasn't all-clear." He stated that the health of the kids should come first and that parents who felt uncomfortable sending their kids shouldn't fear an action against them because of truancy (keeping your child home from school without a good reason.)
Judge Stein stated that he was not ruling or making a determination on the children's ailments and that he was looking at "Where are we today?" As such, he did not see a cause for the injunction and said there was no reason not to believe the sworn affidavits provided by the defense that the roof had been repaired. Stein also noted that the issue of truancy was a Juvenile and Domestic Relations (J&DR) issue and they had jurisdiction over the matter.
Our full, live-coverage broadcast of this hearing is currently available for view on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/alleghanyjournal.
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