Pinelands Regional Parents Pack School Board Meeting Over Air Quality Concerns

LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP - Some parents of students at Pinelands Regional High School say they will keep their children out of school until the air quality improves.

Stacy Caban and her husband kept their son, a senior, home from school Wednesday, causing him to miss the PSAT’s.

“I’m not sending them back until I have written proof in hand saying it’s safe,” she told CBS2.

The high school is in the middle of a roof construction project. District officials closed the high school for four day last week for additional air quality testing.

Parents packed Wednesday night's Board of Education meeting to get some answers.

“This is so damn frustrating,” one father said. “We don’t know where to turn. Would somebody take responsibility that something went wrong?”

TTI Environmental Inc. - the district’s environmental consultant - concluded on Oct. 4 that the most recent testing indicted the results for asbestos were within federal and state standards, Acting Superintendent Cheryl Stevenson has said in a message posted on the district website.

TII later concluded verbally that the air quality sampling for volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) was also safe for occupancy, she said.

TII also recommended that the district use filters to get rid of "transient substances" that were producing unfamiliar odors, Stevenson said.

But students have complained of headaches, nausea and odors since the beginning of the school year. District officials hired TII to come in and do air quality testing last week. District schools were closed from Tuesday through Friday.

“Understand no one up here even considers putting anyone in jeopardy,” District Business Administrator Stephen Brennan said at the meeting.

The district is already using filter units in the high school building to remove substances that are causing odors and will ramp cleaning efforts to minimize dust, Acting Superintendent Cheryl Stevenson has said.
For test sampling results from last week, click here.

Photo: Patch file photo