SHARONVILLE — Princeton School district officials say they plan to follow expert advice to clean a classroom that some teachers and students claim sickened them.

        Shelly Hamler, Princeton assistant superintendent of administration, says the district will follow instructions to remove possible mold contamination in a Robert E. Lucas Intermediate School classroom.

        The classroom's carpeting had water damage in spring 2000. But despite recommendations from an indoor environmental expert and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Princeton district officials did not remove the carpet until March — almost a year later.

        The latest indoor environmental report by the district said there were no dangerous mold levels in the school. Still, health officials recommend that the classroom be cleaned with equipment designed to remove the potential hazard. “Lucas will be cleaned from top to bottom,” said Ms. Hamler. “We are going to make sure our school environment operates at the optimal environmental conditions for our students.”

        The classroom has been sealed off since the water-damaged carpeting was removed in March. Ms. Ham ler said the district also will spend more than $175,000 to replace roofing at Lucas this summer, which officials have said led to water leaking into the classroom and elsewhere.

        In the months before the carpet removal, some Lucas teachers and students who used the classroom said they suffered symptoms consistent with exposure to mold, including headaches, shortness of breath, burning eyes, sinus and respiratory infections, rashes, severe itching and fatigue.

        Though diagnosing mold illness is complicated, parents said that in most cases their children's symptoms lessened or disappeared during prolonged absences from the school.

        Robert Trainor, a Covington attorney representing some teachers and parents of Lucas students, said that despite the district's efforts — which included spending nearly a $1 million last year to replace the school's heating and cooling system — more needs to be done to assure air quality safety.

        “Even though they replaced the air system, some of the old duct work is still there and air is still circulating through it,” said Mr. Trainor. “They are going to have to address that.”

        But district officials have contended that the remaining duct work has been sealed and will not adversely affect school air quality.

        Mold has caused problems in several local schools and at least one hospital in the past months. In February, the Sycamore district discovered potentially dangerous mold on a single ceiling tile in a storage closet at Maple Dale Elementary in Blue Ash. The school was closed for two days while the building was checked.

        In March two temporary classrooms outside Milford South Elementary in Clermont County were temporarily closed while being tested for mold.

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