Daily Archives: April 23, 2015

Back to School

Ellie made it to school. On time even – although I had to run her lunch over later.

Our reasoning was this:
*It’s not like she wasn’t at school already during the fire watch.
*All the tests aren’t in but the super scary issue is acceptable (the results were reviewed by the EPA and I’ve actually seen the reports.).
*It’s not like they’ve ever sanded or prepped the walls before they painted them and even though it’s super likely they never properly sealed the lead paint, Ellie hasn’t eaten paint chips in the past two years. That we know of.
*Mold is scary, but Ellie isn’t crazy allergic. The asbestos was much more worrisome.

Just because she’s back in school doesn’t mean that this is over.

The library is locked because of exposed asbestos that they intend to encapsulate. The School Board will now be following EPA guidelines with regard to notification of the presence of asbestos and the training of their facilities staff (among other things).

There is still the question of why this has gone on for so long and are other buildings in the county as neglected? I also want to have the full history of the fire safety system and some accountability for the disastrous conditions of that. There’s much more, but those are the biggies today.

Partial Results

The air quality tests for asbestos have been returned and the presence of asbestos is within the EPA’s “it’s all good” limits. Which is such a relief! I’m giddy glad that we aren’t all breathing through asbestos-lined lungs. The Big Question of the morning is: Is the return of one test (albeit the scariest one) enough to convince us it’s safe to send her to school? None of the mold tests will be back for a few days, no telling about lead and asbestos dust. I heard that the Fire Marshal would be there today. So is one enough? What if we send her back and the place has 9x the legal limit for lead contamination? I’m not particularly interested in using my child’s health to make a show of good faith.

The press knew this afternoon about the results of the asbestos in the air. They didn’t report it until their news programs, of course. Parents weren’t notified until 9:30 last night. There’s something really wrong with that. Again we were notified by email (I replied to the superintendent and reminded him that up this way we don’t all have internet), but the Superintendent did attach PDFs of the reports substantiating the results. He at least as figure out that assertions of safety aren’t enough. I am grateful for that.

There’s been a lot of trouble with the media and the school system’s PR guy. The PR guy keeps saying things like, “…Board of Education said it does regular testing for mold and asbestos levels to ensure the children stay safe.” And we keep saying, “Then where are the records of these tests? If these tests have been done, just show us the results! You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if this were true just by just showing us the evidence!” And the press never ever questions the PR guy about it. Whatever happened to investigative journalism? I’ve told at least two reporters where to look for proof of that statement – all they have to do is make a phone call.

I’ve missed our little chats.