A rancid sewage smell made teachers in Building 4 take their seventh-period classes outside on Monday. Students and teachers said the smell was too distracting for them to do their work.

“It was [distracting],” said freshman Zuri Lawrence about the smell. “I’m very sensitive to smell, and frankly, I don’t like gagging.”

Biology teacher Angela Feldbush said her students come into class complaining about the sewage smell often, and ask to leave the classroom. Normally she refuses, but this time teaching outside seemed necessary.

“The room was too smelly to stay in,” Feldbush said. “So we ended up having class outside.”

Science teachers Linda Johnson and Alexandra Michaels ended up going outside as well.

Feldbush said the smell came periodically throughout the week, and it always starts around sixth period.

“It’s fairly routine,” she said. “It happens two or three times a week. Usually its not so bad that we have to leave, but its definitely noticeable.”

She said the room usually just smells like raw sewage, but Monday it was like chemical raw sewage. However, the students describe the smell much more graphically.

Though the smell often returns, its source remains unknown.

Feldbush said Assistant Prinicpal Jim Melia’s theory is that something about the lift station for the sewage and pipes seem to back up.

“They’ve really been doing a lot to figure out what’s been going on,” Feldbush said. “But so far nothing’s worked.”

Pipes are being dug up behind Building 4, and smoke tests are run over the weekends, but the source of the smell has yet to be determined.

Emily Dubec-Hunter