A CedarBridge Academy teacher off work because of conditions at the school has hired a lawyer to represent her.

Karen Clemons has been receiving full pay while on ?gardening leave? for the last two months. She has been diagnosed by her doctor as suffering health problems caused by the aspergillus fungus, spores of which have been found at the school.

Her attorney Paul Harshaw said yesterday that she was not planning to take any legal action at the moment as her health was ?wonderful? because she was not in the classroom.

But he said she was desperate to return to work as a teacher and had asked the Ministry of Education to reassign her to another school.

?Since the beginning of the school year she has been unable to attend CedarBridge because it?s not a safe working environment,? he said. ?Either CedarBridge has to be fixed or Karen Clemons has to be assigned to a school that does provide a safe working environment for her.

?She has experienced breathing difficulties, severe fatigue at the end of the day. She was declared unfit.

?I have heard that there have been up to 20 teachers at various times who have been off so far this year.?

Another teacher agreed with that estimate yesterday and alleged that staff had been complaining about health problems related to the building for some time.

The woman ? who asked not to be named ? said many teachers had taken time off due to headaches, sickness and chest and sinus problems which they believed had been caused by the atmosphere at the school.

She claimed that complaints about a constant ?wet carpet? smell in classrooms had been made for several years but had been brushed under the carpet by management.

?In September when we went back to school it hit you as soon as you went into the room,? she said. ?Every Tuesday I would be sick. When you opened up my room you would just get this smell hitting you first thing on a Monday morning.

?You go out of the room, you complain and you are told ?we have had it tested, there?s nothing wrong with it?.?

The teacher said that the problem had got ?progressively worse?.

?We have had teachers who have never had asthma problems. All of a sudden they are coming up with the same symptoms.?

The source alleged that substitute teachers had been sent into the classroom of a staff member known to be off sick and had also reported feeling unwell.

?It has been bloody well out of control,? she said. ?They have been sitting on it and that?s what?s made us angry.

?We don?t know the long-term effects. You can?t play God with people?s lives. It?s disgusting.?understands that a female teacher was taken out of the school on a stretcher after collapsing a couple of years ago.

Her persistent health problems eventually forced her to go on medical leave without pay after being refused medical retirement.

The 58-year-old had surgery on her sinuses in January. Aspergillus is known to affect the sinuses and symptoms can include fever, facial pain, nasal discharge and headaches.

The leaked report from Texas-firm Microbiology Specialists Inc. identifies her classroom ? the sewing room ? as a problem area and lists a raft of measures needed to decontaminate it.