After every class period when students rush through the hallways, ceramics teacher Kimberly Venesky wipes water off her cabinets in G87. The water coats her cabinets, running down the front, settling atop cabinet doors and pooling on the floor.

“Just people washing their hands and splashing or whatever, water is running down the stainless steel [countertop] and down towards the front.” Venesky said. “It’s sitting on top of the [cabinet] door, so when you open the door water is falling onto the floor.”

This has caused the cabinets, which are new having been replaced over the summer, to start deteriorating. Parts of the cabinet have begun to buckle under repeated contact with water and the door has started to split apart.

These cabinets have had issues long before they were replaced, having leaked for several years until finally on March 13, 2024 a Work Order Request was filed to replace the counters. A day later plumbers reported suspected mold, requesting an Indoor Air Quality investigation in a second work Order Request.

The Indoor Air Quality investigation was completed on March 18, 2024, finding a decayed root structure on a piece of rubble in the cabinet. It is also unclear if mold was properly checked for, as the cabinets were not removed, so the wall behind was not assessed where Venesky argues the mold was located.

While the Indoor Air Quality investigation was complete, the cabinets were not replaced.

Eventually on June 18, over a year after the request was first filed, new cabinets were installed. However it was unclear what happened when they put the new counters in.

“I don’t know how they addressed the mold, whether or not they just put the cabinets on top of it, wiped it down, whether it’s actually up to code, and that’s my concern right now, that it’s just going to come back.” Venesky said.

So when the new cabinets began to show signs of water damage, Venesky sent a Work Order request on Sept. 9, less than two weeks after school began. Several MCPS administrators came to G87 to see the problem, one of which was Debrah Teicher, the school business administrator.

“The architect did the drawings and they figured out everything and in any good construction project, there’s always that little hiccup that you don’t know about until you get into that practical use,” Deborah Teicher said.

Venesky was given a pair of mats to prevent students from slipping, and waited for the work order request to be completed. MCPS has opened nearly 10,200 Work Orders Requests for preventive maintenance countywide in the 2025 fiscal year, well below their goal of 15,000. Of those work orders, just 37% were closed within a month.

“As soon as we are alerted of a problem, either Mr. Neal or myself are immediately on the phone putting those work orders in, and we are at the mercy of them [MCPS], whether it’s plumbing or HVAC or electrical, and I would say 99.9% of the time we have a really good working relationship and [MCPS] comes as quickly as they can,” Teicher said.

It’s unclear how long the mats will last.

“The one on the left is pretty saturated with water, it never dries out, and unfortunately, that’s gonna cause a mold issue,” Venesky said.

So far neither WJ admin nor MCPS has updated Venesky on the situation. New faucets however have been ordered, ones that can swivel around.

Overall though, the new cabinets are an improvement from last year when they were falling apart.

“I’m absolutely grateful for them,” Venesky said.