WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Hartford High School will lose access to 12 classrooms this fall due to contamination from toxic materials.
The new closures are latest effects of high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs, to affect Hartford School District facilities. Last summer, the district was forced to close off space at the Hartford Area Career and Technical Center after the chemicals were detected there. The district has yet to regain use of the spaces.
The new closures come following air quality testing completed in June, which revealed high levels of PCBs, in two classrooms and a locker room space that is part of the gym, according to a report from the Department of Environmental Conservation discussed at Wednesday’s Hartford School Board meeting.
State and school officials met in mid-July to discuss the test results and what to do next. Since then, Hartford administrators have worked to change schedules to accommodate students and educators before the first day of school on Wednesday, Aug. 27.
“The second we received these results and shared them, we have been putting together a plan for where these classes will be held, where staff will be,” Hartford Superintendent Caty Sutton said during the meeting. The priority is to keep students on campus and “for students to feel like they’re having the same experience that they ordinarily would.”
The quarterly testing found multiple rooms — including rooms 205 and 214, and a locker room near the gym — exceeded the “immediate action level” set by Act 74, enacted in 2021. Rooms at the immediate action level have a concentration of PCBs in the air deemed unsafe by the state and students are not allowed to be in those spaces.
The two Hartford High classrooms, located in the school’s B wing, were previously at the “school action level.” At the school action level, students are allowed in classroom spaces for limited amounts of time.
Ten classrooms that have similar materials as rooms 205 and 214 are also off limits, Kassandra Kimmey, a project manager at the Department of Environmental Conservation who is overseeing Hartford’s PCB response, said during the meeting.
The 12 classrooms are used by a variety of grades for a variety of subjects, Sutton said in a Thursday video interview.
All educational opportunities, sports and extracurricular activities will continue at the high school.
“There really won’t be any noticeable changes,” she said. “If we were to lose much more space, that would be a different conversation.”
Thatcher Hinman, vice president of the Hartford Education Association, a union that represents Hartford educators, declined to comment on what the classroom closures related to PCBs mean for staff.
Act 74 also requires all school districts with facilities built prior to 1980 to test for PCB contamination; if contamination is identified, the districts are required to address it.
PCBs were commonly used in building materials including caulk and paint prior to 1979 when the Environmental Protection Agency banned them.
Exposure to PCBs has been linked to cancer, as other reproductive, immune, nervous and endocrine system health effects, Vermont State Toxicologist Andrea Kirk said during the meeting. Children are more at-risk than adults because their bodies are still developing and exposure may lead to learning disabilities, among other side effects.
A chart that Kimmey shared with test results in room 205 from April 2024, Oct. 2024, January 2025 and June 2025 showed a relationship between temperature and PCB levels.
“I think our takeaway from this is that temperature does seem to be correlated with indoor air concentrations and when we see higher temperatures inside, we see higher PCB concentrations,” Kimmey said. She noted that the opposite was true: When the same classroom was tested when temperatures were lower, PCB levels were also lower.
It is the second summer in a row that PCB testing showed that Hartford classrooms exceeded immediate action levels.
Students enrolled in Hartford Area Career and Technical Center’s culinary arts program were relocated to a rented space in White River Junction prior to the last school year due to PCB contamination and will remain in that space for the coming school year.
Material testing ordered by the state has found that caulk surrounding door frames, windows and expansion joints is the biggest contributor to higher PCB levels, Kimmey said during the meeting. That’s followed by sealants, glazes and varnishes, then wall and floor paint.
“Until these materials are addressed, they will continue to impact indoor air,” Kimmey said.
How Hartford does that remains to be seen. State funds are limited; the Legislature approved $9.5 million for the July 2025-2026 fiscal year to assist six school districts, including Hartford, with PCB cleanup efforts.
The district is currently working on hiring an environmental consultant to write up an evaluation of corrective action alternatives, known as an ECAA, to consider options for cleaning up PCBs in the buildings, facilities director Jonathan Garthwaite said in a Thursday video interview. That document is required by the state before the district can apply for any funding.
In the meantime, all PCB cleanup and remediation efforts are on hold, he said.
