Parents in Philadelphia lashed out at the school board after more exposed asbestos was found in the T.M. Pierce Elementary School in areas like breakroom and library. While the school claims that they are working on it, parents have refused to send their children to school unless the school is relocated somewhere else.
The school had called for a meeting with the parents to discuss the district’s plan to keep students at school while handling the asbestos problem alongside. The lunch break room and the library would be shifted to another room for the time being. However, parents were not interested in any of this and were quick to aggressively reject the proposal.
Principal Gordon has claimed that he was assured that there was no immediate danger and no chances of exposure at the moment. Thus the classes will continue at their normal schedule.
However, one of the parents has accused the school and the district of making false promises. She believes that their children are suffering just because they are ‘poor and not white’. Another parent said,
Its unfathomable. How can they allow the children to come to the school after this?
After seeing the ferocious revolt by the parents, the school district officials have currently stopped from implementing the plan and asked the parents to wait till Friday for the final plan. This time, the plan would be according to the parents’ wishes and the school will be relocated soon. The school building with exposed asbestos will be demolished too. The total expenditure will be somewhere around $40 million.
Asbestos problem not new
The reason for the vicious anger of parents was that the school system had known about the asbestos problem for more than 6 weeks but nothing was done to contain it. Before this too, many other cases were also reported where the school system didn’t pay any heed to the issue.
Last week, the basement of the school was forcefully shut down after damaged asbestos insulation was found. All in all, the district will need to remove more than 5000 sq. feet of asbestos from the school’s basement. The team working on the asbestos problem is currently working after school hours.
