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Union gets hazardous conditions repaired at Queens school
Sep 12, 2008 11:46 AM
The collapsed wall and plaster of this moldy corner indicate how extensive the decay was and how long maintenance of the building had been deferred.
The dilapidated and decaying disaster that was PS 256 in the Rockaways has been scrubbed and made safe for students and staff, thanks to the UFT, but staffers worry that hidden problems might remain.
Like her colleagues, Debra VanDenten said, “We knew the building was in disrepair, but we were not aware of how bad it really was.”
Susan Lombardo, a school nurse there for eight years, echoed other worries: “I was pregnant here so it’s scary to know about the asbestos and to worry about long-term effects.”
UFT President Randi Weingarten talks to Chapter Leader Hans Marryshow (left) and physical education teacher Garry Patrylo about the cleanup of PS 256 on the first day of school. UFT Vice President Michael Mulgrew looks on.
Physical education teacher Jack Hirsch noted, “The Department of Education still has a long way to go on long-term maintenance, but what the union has done is fantastic. They really stepped forward and I feel reassured.”
UFT President Randi Weingarten was at PS 256 on the first day of school to reassure staff that the union would not have let them come back to a building that didn’t completely meet health and safety standards.
On Aug. 29, Queens Borough Representative Rona Freiser, special representatives Doreen Rafferty and Sandra Dunn-Yules, District 75 Representative Phil Sylvester and union hygienist Chris Proctor met with staff to explain what had been done to make the building safe and to reassure them the building is no longer a health hazard and that the cleanup included additional air monitoring to guarantee clean air.
Freiser, acknowledging the lingering worries — what school psychologist Laurie Kleing calls “the big issue of trust” — said, “We too are concerned and will stay focused on all the issues here.”
The peeling paint and damaged plaster, loose floor tiles and uncaged ceiling lights in the gym have been repaired — note the negative air machine in the corner.
This school’s turnaround came in the nick of time.
When union safety and health officials entered the sturdy-looking, three-floor brick building on Aug. 11, they were appalled at what they found inside: mold, chronic water leaks, asbestos issues, flaking and peeling paint and mice droppings throughout the building, including the lunch room area.
More appalling, the building had been home to autistic and emotionally disturbed children right through the summer school session with no apparent DOE plans for cleaning up the mess before the opening of school. Teachers were aware that the peeling paint and broken windows were evidence of an old building that was not maintained, but nobody realized there was an asbestos and mold emergency.
Chapter Leader Hans Marryshow described it as “the silent killer forming here.”
At an emergency meeting with the DOE and the School Construction Authority immediately following the union’s inspection of the building, UFT Vice President Michael Mulgrew, Co-Staff Director Ellie Engler, School Safety Director Sterling Roberson, and hygienists Proctor and Ed Olmsted, presented a detailed list of 15 health and safety hazards which made the building a risk to staff and students and not a suitable school environment. They called for an immediate cleanup.
Mulgrew, who described the building as a place where no parent would want to send a child, made it very clear to the DOE that the union would not let students or staff into the building until it met health and safety standards.
UFT President Randi Weingarten hears about a stain on the ceiling from teachers Kerry Maguire and Patricia Kalambogias.
By the following week, emergency clean-up crews were working around the clock so that the union’s follow-up walk-through of the building on Aug. 25 found that it had been surgically cleaned from top to bottom. Besides undergoing asbestos abatement treatments, the building’s leaky and broken windows were caulked and replaced, the gym floor, electricity and plumbing were repaired, the outer walls were waterproofed and rodent issues were addressed.
On a walk-through to check on the clean up, Chris Proctor, UFT industrial hygienist, checks the new caulking on the formerly leaky windows.
While the building now meets health and safety standards, there is still more long-term work to be done because of years of deferred maintenance. Opened in 1950 as a community center for Temple Beth-El, the building had been leased for more than a decade by the DOE before Tweed purchased it earlier this year. Despite prepurchase inspections of the building, the DOE made no move to close it down because of its serious health hazards.
Physical education teacher Garry Patrylo realized just how bad the decay was when he found the locked room behind his gym office open one day and saw the actual mold and decay.
“The DOE should have closed this building and fixed it completely after they bought it,” he said.
Responding to questions of why the DOE would buy a building in such serious disrepair, UFT President Randi Weingarten has requested an investigation into the lease and purchase of the building. In a letter to Richard Condon, special commissioner of investigation for the New York City School District, she questioned how children and staff could be placed in such a hazardous building and why the property was purchased in light of the building’s condition.
Proctor pointed out that while the building is decontaminated, significant problems of water infiltration through the exterior walls must be addressed.
In addition to the cleanup, the added bonus for staff is the creation of an “adults-only” bathroom, one of the two that had been shared up until now. And in that two-bowl bathroom, where new size-appropriate bowls have been installed, there is now a separating partition.
