The alarm went off at about 11:50 a.m. Thursday and school was let out early at about 1 p.m., and the building closed down as the Department of Environmental Protection brought in its mobile lab to investigate. There had been a similar incident on Wednesday when students were evacuated for about 45 minutes. Students were taking the Connecticut Mastery Tests this week. Thursday was the last day of testing. Several students exiting the school said they had finished with the tests before the alarm went off.

Fire Chief Jim Simons said fumes from roof work, likely primer, had been sucked back into the school through the HVAC system. Although the school has been plagued with air quality problems for more than a decade, the roof repair situation is recent occurrence, Simons said. The town recently authorized an extensive renovation of the HVAC system as well as other aspects of the building that are suspected to be causing health issues for students and staff.

School officials were not immediately available to comment.

Several parents were at the school trying to find out what was going on. After

 “The infrastructure has not been maintained,” said Dawn Stepensky, mother of an eight-grader. She also had worked as a teacher at the school at one time. She’s glad her son is going to private school next year. In part, that is due to "the lack of support for the schools” in Berlin. “It’s very frustrating,” she said of the frequent evacuations. “It’s an ongoing issue.”

One student estimated school had been disrupted 10 times last year due to evacuations. During the evacuation Thursday, students stood outside for about an hour, most without jackets. Students were released to parents who were on the scene or taken home via bus. They did not have access to their lockers as they could not go back in the building and so jackets and knapsacks were left at the school. This proved to be a logistics problem, in some cases, as some students had house keys with their belongings. It is not know at this time how this was resolved.

Christine Lapierre was there to pick up her sixth-grade student. Lapierre said it’s time for grass roots action on the part of parents. “We need to rally and get the school fixed ASAP.”

 “We don’t know the full impact of this medically —the long-term effects,” said Karen Ott who has a son in seventh grade.

“Enough is enough, we need to get it fixed now,” Lapierre said.

“It’s the same old stuff” said several other parents who concurred that the problems at the school are impacting their childdren educationally and possibly healthwise as well. One mother said her son, who never had a rash before attending McGee, now sufferered from one. She said she “cringed” to think of sending her daughter there next year.