MILLBURN, N.J. – New Jersey music teacher Mary Jean Alsina just won nearly $2 million in a lawsuit against the Millburn school district over a moldy classroom that her doctor said caused asthma and other lung problems.

“My client feels vindicated,” Alsina’s attorney, Gina Mendola Longarzo, told NJ.com. “She is very honest, she didn’t exaggerate. … (The school) tried to discredit her, and punished her, but it was worth all of the suffering.”

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Alsina filed the lawsuit in 2013 after she alleges district officials did not properly remove mold growing in her music classroom, which caused lung problems and forced her to reduce her teaching to part-time. She contends that district officials further reduced her teaching time to one day per week when she continued to complain about the situation to students, parents and colleagues, according to the news site.

“According to the decision, Alsina argued that she had complained about a musty smell in the room, dripping water from the ceiling, stains and seepage on the walls, and what she believed to be mold growing in the room,” NJ.com reports. “Though she argued that the district tested the room and that the school’s custodial staff cleaned up the area, Alsina said she did not feel that they adequately addressed the problem, the decision states.”

That decision, written by Essex County Superior Court Judge Christine Farrington last week, also came with a roughly $1.8 million judgement against the Millburn Board of Education to cover Alsina’s medical expenses, lost wages and other damages.

The district’s initial action against Alsina followed a formal complaint she made to the school board and the Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health program, as well as an email she sent home to parents warning them about the issue, Montclair Patch reports.

“Parents have a right to know,” she told the Patch in 2012.

“Moisture is the biggest catalyst for mold growth, which only takes 24-48 hours to grow. Although the district has said they’re fixing the problem, I’ve witnessed the ‘cleanup’ and it is insufficient and it was being done by custodians during school hours,” Alsina said.

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Alsina argued that the control sample collected for the mold test was taken from a hallway just outside the classroom and likely skewed the results.

A Millburn school spokesman refused to discuss the lawsuit with NJ.com, citing personnel and legal issues.

Longarzo said she expects the district to appeal the recent ruling. She said Alsina has continued to teach one day per week at the school, but may resign in the future. Longarzo said Alsina’s focus for filing the lawsuit wasn’t to hit a big payday, but rather to help protect students from what she truly believes is a serious health issue at her middle school.

“You can’t mess with the safety of your students and teachers,” Longarzo said. “That’s really what this was all about.”

Folks online expressed mixed reactions to the judge’s award.

“A real and thorough mold eradication would have been cheaper than what they likely paid for the lawyers to fight this,” justimho posted to the NJ.com comments. “What was the district legal bill?”

“It’s easy to do ‘air sampling’ mold tests at particular times of the day or under certain ventilation conditions that will result in (false) negatives,” BrassBand5 posted. “Pure speculation here, but I’m guessing they pulled some kind of student like this to claim the mold was ‘gone’ when it really wasn’t.”

“This means all of the kids in that classroom can stage a money grab themselves,” Zira wrote.