BLADENSBURG — Two members of the Code Enforcement Bureau for the Division of State Fire Marshal visited East Knox Elementary School on Tuesday afternoon to follow up on discrepancies between a fire inspection in April, and one 10 days ago.
Anthony Castelvetere, the SFM inspector who performed the state inspection in April, documented only one violation in his report, a malfunctioning fire alarm which was found to be repaired at the May follow-up. Castelvetere was not a part of the walk through on Tuesday.
An inspection by state certified Bladensburg inspector Josh Lester and Bladensburg Interim Fire Chief Nick Cockrell 10 days ago found dozens of violations. Those violations have since been corrected, or are in the process of being corrected.
CEB Chief Patrick Wambo and Inspector Supervisor Ken Johnson accompanied Cockrell through the school to look over the safety updates the school has worked on over the past 10 days.
“I talked to the principal and gave him a lot of credit for what he’s done, and the maintenance staff especially,” Wambo said after the walk through.
Cockrell also praised the efforts of the school staff to correct the safety violations. The staff at East Knox began working on the safety upgrades immediately following the Bladensburg inspection on Oct. 17. Principal Steve Rose said the Bladensburg department was extremely helpful with guiding the staff through the process, and bringing code requirements to the staff’s attention.
Cockrell said the maintenance staff worked extra hours to perform the upgrades, which comply with the most recent Ohio Fire Code.
“The janitorial staff is more than willing to do whatever I ask of them,” he said.
When asked if the inspection by Castelvetere in April was done according to state standards, Wambo said the fact the school was on spring break may have impeded the inspector’s access into classrooms.
Rose said last week that Castelvetere never walked through the classrooms, but did check the school fire inspection log and the fire alarm.
“There’s things I would have done differently,” Wambo said of the spring inspection.
Wambo said the accountability for inspectors is being reviewed and updated.
“We are improving what we have as we speak,” he said. “We are reviewing the work of all of the inspectors; in fact, we’re reviewing the work of even the office personnel, because everybody gets treated the same.”
SFM spokesman Cara Keithley said the SFM will involve inspectors in the development of an improved process.
“We’re going to go back and involve the inspectors in that process to make sure they are aware of what the standards are and what we require of them so that there’s consistency across the board with the staff,” she said.
Wambo said Ken Johnson, Castelvetere’s supervisor, was at the walk through just to observe.
Keithley said the purpose of Tuesday’s visit was not to find fault with the school or the Bladensburg Fire Department’s inspection.
“The point of us coming here today wasn’t to criticize the inspection that was done by the local department, it was to make sure that things were consistent and to review our own processes as much as anything,” she said. “Our intent is just to make sure we’re conducting consistent and fair inspections. This is something that will help us make sure that we are doing consistent code enforcement throughout the state.
“We want to make sure we’re conducting just as thorough of an inspection as the local department and vice versa, depending on what the code stipulates.”
Keithley said the state may be following up on other previous inspections, in addition to East Knox Elementary.
“This may not be an isolated incident. There may be cases in the future where we will want to go back and kind of have checks and balances, look at the way other inspections were done to make sure that things continue to be consistent,” she said.
She said those checks could be done throughout the state, and not specifically in Knox County.
“Supervisors are going to go out with the inspectors and also they’re going to follow up and do a quality control,” said Wambo.
Wambo said there are many demands on his inspectors.
“We only have 28 inspectors and five supervisors, so it’s tough,” he said. “We help the local departments out where we can, but there’s numerous things we have to do and there’s only so many hours in the day.”
“I think that our goal is to conduct every school inspection consistently and make sure that every school is the safest place for children to learn, and part of our goal in coming here today is to make sure our future inspections are consistent with our standards,” Keithley said.
