NYCDOE Continues To Poison Students, Staff With PCB's In City Schools

Once again, it becomes apparent that the Children First. Always people care nothing about children:

Despite vowing to speed up the process of replacing light fixtures containing dangerous chemicals in city schools, the Education Department does not follow its own protocols to alert parents and quickly remove toxic PCBs, according to emails obtained by the Daily News.

The exchanges between staffers from the DOE and Environmental Protection Agency show that defective light fixtures are still leaking in city schools — and replacement of the faulty fixtures at some were not handled properly.

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At Public School 253 in Brighton Beach, several fixtures did not work in the auditorium this year. School staff discovered one of the lights had leaked toxic liquid in the auditorium in August.

“The custodian did not follow procedures for reporting it or cleaning it,” EPA employee John Gorman wrote in March to his colleagues. “They are removing all of the fixtures in the auditorium tonight and will collect a wipe sample from the floor.”

At P.S. 186 in Bensonhurst, there were five smoking ballasts recorded from March to May, Gorman noted to his colleagues in another email.

In a letter sent to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott in February regarding more toxins at P.S. 50 in Staten Island, EPA regional administrator Judith Enck called out the DOE for taking 10 days to alert families of smoke emanating from fixtures.

“The students were not immediately removed from the classroom,” Enck wrote. “I am concerned about the DOE’s response to the situation.”

And what was the DOE's response?

 

Why, a jive-ass p.r. statement from Marge Feinberg, of course!

 

“The DOE continues to work with EPA on improving protocols and developing a citywide PCB management plan,” said spokeswoman Margie Feinberg. “As the lighting replacement project progresses, DOE is keeping EPA abreast of ongoing work.”

They don't care about the children in the public school system at all.

Seriously, not at all.

If they did, they would have sped up the removal of the PCB's from the light fixtures in all of the schools instead of fighting the case brought against them and trying to delay the removal as long as possible.

And if money was such a problem, then they could have dumped a few Common Core consultants or testing contracts and put that money to the PCB removal.

But Bloomberg would never do that because he doesn't care about these children (or the staff) at all.

 

Remember, they did this with mold testing and removal after Sandy too.

 

Bloomberg and his Tweedies love spending money on all kinds of testing except for environmental testing of schools to ensure their safety.

Isn't it time that we call him and his Tweedies on their Children First. Always jive once and for all?

NYCDOE's Marge Feinberg: We Can't Afford To Remove PCB's From Schools Because We Spent The Money On Smartboards

Oh, yes - that's what she said:

A South Bronx charter school founded by a former city councilwoman replaced its city-issued toxic lighting fixtures by itself — rather than waiting for a Department of Education retrofit for the public schools in the same building this summer, the Daily News has learned.

The Bronx Success Academy, founded by Eva Moskowitz, spent its own money to replace the lights — which are leaking with cancer-causing chemicals — while two other schools in the same Morris Ave. building have to wait.

“I think it’s terrible,” Dean Gross, a science teacher at M.S. 203, which shares space with the charter school, Bronx Academy of Letters and P.S. 168.

Gross said he’s forced to teach students in a windowless classroom with a poor ventilation system and no air conditioner — and lighting fixtures that leak polychlorinated biphenyls, which are linked to cancer, reproductive and neurological problems, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Our kids in the building have so many issues to begin with,” Gross added. “We’re the number one asthma district in the country. This does not help. The teachers are dragging. They’ve got headaches and stomach pains.”

Union health and safety officials are to meet with the city Tuesday to discuss how Success Charter Network removed the tainted lighting fixtures.

The Bronx Academy of Letters, one of four schools in the building, had its lights replaced last summer as part of a classroom redesign, according to the city.

Marge Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the building’s remaining tainted lights would be switched out this summer. Feinberg added the city spent more than $1.7 million upgrading the three public schools.

“The funding was spent on Smartboards, bathroom upgrades, laptop carts, drinking fountains, reconfiguring classroom space for Bronx Academy of Letters, and new classroom doors,” Feinberg said.

I'm going to leave aside the issue of unequal treatment between the Eva charter and the public schools in the same building for now.

Let's just focus on what NYCDOE spokesperson Marge Feinberg said about this PCB mess.

Let me repeat what she said here:

"We couldn't get the cancer-causing PCB's out of these schools, the ones dripping on people's heads and making them sick, because we spent all the money on Smartboards and laptop carts.  But don't worry - we'll get those PCB's removed this summer as soon as the new budget money kicks in!"

Marge Feinberg - quite literally one of the worst people in the world.

Can you imagine the lack of morality, empathy and humanity it takes to say the stupid crap she says?

DOE Spokesperson Marge Feinberg And Bed Bugs

There's a bed bug infestation at PS 69 in Jackson Heights.

Bed bugs have been found in 15 classrooms since September.

There were also bed bug outbreaks in PS 69 at the end of last school year.

The DOE Minister of Propaganda insists 15 classrooms with bed bugs in them is not an infestation or a problem:

Education Department spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said though the specimens have been found at the school, there has been no infestation.

"Every time we find a single bed bug, we are required to report it," Feinberg said in an email. "Schools are not hospitable environments for bed bugs and are brought in from the outside, usually in a bag or on clothing."

The rooms were cleaned and parents were notified, Feinberg said.

Feinberg is wrong that schools aren't hospitable environments for bed bugs.

You have wood all over the place, reading rugs, upholstered chairs in offices and kids' coats, bags and gym clothes.

Bed bugs love that kind of stuff to hide in.

But apparently Marge Feinberg thinks because schools don't have beds in them, bed bugs don't find schools hospitable.

She is either ignorant of the matter or full of crap - you pick.

This has been the line of jive the DOE has offered since bed bug sightings became a problem back in 2010 - schools are not hospitable places for bed bugs, the DOE deals with incidents immediately, etc.

But Feinberg is full of crap on that last one - the DOE does NOT deal with incidents immediately.

Here's the DOE protocol for schools when it comes to bed bugs:

You have to catch the bug, you have to send it off to a lab and you have to wait at least two weeks for the results to come back.

By the time you get a positive notice and start the remediation effort, the other bed bugs in the school could have started a whole new cohort that leads to a much bigger problem than you had two weeks before.

Clearly that is what has happened at PS 69.

For the DOE to claim that 15 classrooms with bed bugs in them since September and a swath of bed bug incidents at the end of last school year at PS 69 is nothing more than a couple of isolated incidents is laughable on the face of it.

Or at least it's laughable if you're not stuck attending that school or working in it and at risk for getting bit or bringing some bed bugs home with you.

Parents at PS 69 ought to bring a whole bunch of stuff from the school building and dump it on Marge Feinberg's desk and see if she's confident that there's no bed bug problem at PS 69.

Although come to think of it, with all the blood-sucking parasites employed at the DOE, Tweed Courthouse already has a bed bug problem in it.