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.
Monday 13 May 2013
NYCDOE's Marge Feinberg: We Can't Afford To Remove PCB's From Schools Because We Spent The Money On Smartboards
Posted on 17:40 by Ashish Chaturvedi
Oh, yes - that's what she said:
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