Would the black cloud parked over Harriet Johnson Elementary School please drift away? Quickly?
As if the woes swirling around the Tucson Unified School District's newest school weren't troubling enough, now there are bats.First were the abandoned mine shafts and open pits, some within 100 yards of the new school near the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation.
Then came the discovery of heavy-metal contamination in soil within a half-mile, where copper, silver and gold were mined some 80 years ago. The building is in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains.
Next, water with unacceptable levels of lead poured forth from the school's faucets and drinking fountains, prompting tribal leaders to urge a boycott of the school.
Now, bats have halted work to seal the mine shafts.
"It just seems like one thing piggybacks on another," said district spokeswoman Patricia Murphy.
Some school board members alleged a cover-up and "institutionalized racism" by district administrators who knew about the mine shafts in November but never told the school board.
Former Superintendent Paul Houston said Monday he did not notify the board because he did not think the shafts would endanger the pupils.
The $4.2 million school - which blends in with the desert setting and has a a free-standing rainbow arch, a Yaqui symbol of hope - was to have an enrollment of 412 pupils in kindergarten through second grade. It opened Aug. 19.
Instead, about 42 Indian children are attending a makeshift reservation school, about 40 enrolled in other Tucson schools and up to 30 aren't going to school at all, said tribal executive assistant Luis Gonzales.
Seventy Indian children are going to the school - against the tribe's recommendation - along with about 230 other pupils, mainly white and Hispanic.
Bottled water is being served while tests continue to determine the source of the lead. Samples show lead levels of up to 500 parts per billion, 30 times the recommended level.
Meanwhile, the federal Bureau of Land Management, Pima County, the state mine inspector's office, the tribe and the school district set about earlier this month filling in 24 open mine shafts.