A teacher at Riverside Brookfield High School accused school administrators of violating district policy and state law after he said he became sick two days in a row due to exposure to fumes from floor sealant products.
David Monti, a science teacher at RB, told RBHS District 208 administrators he fell sick on Thursday, Nov. 14 and Friday, Nov. 15, after he was exposed to fumes from floor sealing work being done in the high school’s east gymnasium. He claimed Superintendent Kevin Skinkis, Assistant Superintendent Kristin Smetana and Principal Héctor Freytas violated board and state policy by not warning staff of the potential exposure. Monti has not filed any formal complaints against the district.
Smetana told the Landmark the work was done after the gym floor sustained water damage over the summer and was not originally planned for the school year. She said the district’s contractor did not inform administrators when the floor sealing would take place or what products it would use and the school took immediate efforts to mitigate the exposure of fumes to staff.
Chemical fumes
At the school board’s Dec. 10 meeting, Monti, who has worked at the high school since 1990, publicly commented he developed a “severe headache and my eyes were burning” after noticing “an odor that smelled like very strong spray paint” the afternoon of Nov. 14. That afternoon, students in his Ecology Club complained about the odor. He said he left the school around 4:30 p.m. after reporting his symptoms to the administration over email and did not feel better until 7 p.m.
The next day, Monti said he noticed the odor again; he said he informed administration at 6:42 a.m. and began experiencing the same symptoms by 7:15 a.m. At about 9:15 a.m., he said, Smetana informed him that the second coat of sealant planned for that afternoon had been pushed to the next morning, a Saturday, while another administrator offered teachers the option to move their classroom for the day. Monti said he left the school around 10:15 a.m. due to his symptoms and did not feel better until 1:30 p.m.
Monti said he spoke to other school staff members on Nov. 15 about the odor, but when he asked them to speak up, none did and some staffers told him they feared possible repercussions.
In his public comment, Monti told administrators they had violated both D208 policy and the law by failing to warn teachers and staff about the chemicals used to seal the gym’s floor.
He pointed to district policy 4:160, which says “the superintendent shall take all reasonable measures to protect the safety of district personnel, students and visitors on district premises from risks associated with hazardous materials.”
Monti also named the Illinois Toxic Substances Disclosure to Employees Act, which gives workers “an inherent right to know about the known and suspected health hazards which may result from working with toxic substances.” While that act has been inoperative in state law since June 2022, the Illinois General Assembly replaced it with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration Hazardous Communication Standards, which “requires … all employers to provide information to their employees about the hazardous chemicals to which they are exposed.”
Monti said he was disappointed in the district’s handling of the incident.
“This administration did something that completely impacted the learning for the day in a negative way,” he said. “That’s not acceptable in my eyes and shouldn’t be acceptable in anybody’s eyes.”
Administrators respond
Smetana, the assistant superintendent, said the administration informed teachers of the work involving sealant as soon as they learned about it — on the day it took place.
In an interview, she told the Landmark the district had to repair the east gym floor during the school year due to damage sustained over the summer.
“We had some water damage in our east gym. It was from our rooftop HVAC unit leaking. When the leak happened in July, we thought we got all the water up, and little did we know the water had gotten under the wood floor,” she said. “As it started to get humid in August and into September, the floor started to buckle.”
Around mid-September, she said, administrators realized they would need to replace the floor and sought a contractor. She said work on the gym began in late October or early November and involved ripping up the floor, replacing the wood, sanding it down and resealing it.
She said the timing of the leak pushed the district to complete the work during the school year so the gym would be usable when winter struck and outside temperatures dropped.
“I found out on the day that the floor was being sealed that they were sealing the floor that day,” she said. “The company didn’t give us advanced notice of when the sealing was going to occur, nor did they give us information about the product and the safety precautions or warnings that were associated with the product.”
Once the contractors applied the sealant on Nov. 14, Smetana said, “There was a noticeable odor, and so that’s when we started to take precautions to mitigate the odor. Right away, we opened the doors to the gym and the outdoors, and we brought in fans and ventilated the space to improve air circulation.”
She said she canceled the second coat of sealant work planned for Nov. 15 once she learned of it and got it moved to the next day, paying the contractors overtime to finish their work on the weekend.
When asked why RB staff may not have felt comfortable bringing up exposure to the sealant fumes to administration, Smetana said she disagreed with Monti’s “assessment.”
“I don’t agree with his perspective. I’ll also go back and say he chose not to move his classroom, which was an option that certainly would have assisted in the situation,” she said. “We had … two teachers, because they share the classroom, that came forward and expressed concern, and we moved their classroom, and those teachers were able to complete the rest of the day without any issues.”
Smetana emphasized the work was originally unplanned by the school district and D208 administration aims to complete similar work during summer break to avoid situations like these.
“I think it was really an unfortunate, isolated incident, and as soon as the administration was aware that there was a noticeable odor, we immediately took action to mitigate it and keep the students’ safety and staff’s safety at the forefront,” she said. “Unfortunately, we can’t go back and change what happened, but we certainly will address issues like this proactively in the future when we’re hiring a third-party contractor.”
