WORCESTER – The city teachers’ union Thursday continued to put pressure on the School Committee to drop its appeal of a state decision allowing the association to test for potentially hazardous chemicals in two city high schools.
At a rally before the School Committee’s meeting, dozens of teachers, students and other residents chanted slogans chastising school officials and calling for action to rid schools of polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs for short. During the meeting, many of those people spoke about how they have been personally affected by the alleged dangerous level of PCBs at Burncoat High School and Doherty High School, including some who wondered whether the chemicals might have caused the cancer that sickened or killed their loved one.
Throughout the night there were familiar arguments from both sides on the PCB issue which has divided school officials and the Educational Association of Worcester for the last six years. Over that time, the district has spent millions of dollars replacing windows and doors at schools thought to contain PCBs, and in the last few months have agreed to do air testing for them at Burncoat and Doherty as well. The district also recently found out Doherty could be eligible in a few years for a major renovation or full replacement that would be mostly paid for by the state.
The district also recently found out Doherty could be eligible in a few years for a major renovation or full replacement that would be mostly paid for by the state.
At Thursday’s meeting, the schools’ environmental consultant, Valerie Tillinghast, reiterated the School Committee’s stance that the district is not only meeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for dealing with suspected PCBs, but also exceeding them.
She also attempted to dispel fears that PCBs would be a significant health hazard at the degree to which they’d be present in the schools. At one point she said gasoline is more dangerous, eliciting some seemingly condescending laughter from the audience.
“This is a case where the public perception has not caught up with the science,” Ms. Tillinghast said, explaining that while high levels of exposure to PCBs can cause adverse short-term effects like a temporary acne-like condition, “there’s no identified link to cancer of any sort.”
Her presentation did not sit well with attendees, who repeatedly questioned her assertions. Former Worcester mayor Raymond Mariano, for example, who has been a vocal critic of the School Committee on the PCB issue over the past year, said the claim that PCBs were not harmful didn’t seem to fit with the reality that the district has invested so much money trying to get rid of them in city schools over the last few years.
“The truth is, since 2010, and probably long before that, you’ve known this was a serious problem,” he said. “The sad truth is, we no longer trust the School Committee to protect us, we no longer trust the School Committee to tell us the truth, and we no longer trust the School Committee to do the right thing.”
Others who attended the rally and School Committee meeting, like Rosemary Ridler, who carried a poster displaying a picture of her daughter, Melanie Ridler Desiata, questioned whether Burncoat and Doherty were to blame for killing a family member. Melanie graduated from Burncoat High in 1993, and died of colon cancer in 2010, her mother said.
“I don’t know (why). They did genetic testing, there was nothing. There’s no family history. She was only 34 when she died,” Ms. Ridler said. “She was a very healthy woman. I can’t help but wonder when I see all this information … I can’t say it was (PCBs), but nobody can tell me it wasn’t.”
Johnny Robinson, holding a picture of his late wife, Antoinette McClain-Robinson, who passed away from cancer last May after teaching at Burncoat for 10 years, also couldn’t understand how someone so healthy could suddenly die so quickly.
“If her story can save a life or two, I pray to God someone will at look at this and say, ‘this is real,” he said.
Many speakers from the audience specifically called on the committee to drop its appeal of the state labor relations department’s decision last year granting the union access to test for PCBs at Burncoat and Doherty. While the committee and union have been meeting in negotiations over the last few months to reach an agreement on how to do PCB testing, those talks recently broke down.
“The School Committee’s efforts do not go far enough to protect the people in those buildings,” said Timary Harrity, a junior at Doherty. “The least that can be done is to stop this appeal.”
After closing public comment, Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty, the chairman of the School Committee, continued to defend the district’s handling of the issue.
“I don’t understand the endgame here, really,” he said of the criticisms, adding the schools have been addressing PCBs in the schools for years now.
Committee member Brian O’Connell, however, introduced a new idea that could expedite the process: pursuing a bond issue specifically for dealing with school building repair and replacement needs that can’t be immediately addressed through the district budget or with state funding.
Scott O’Connell can be reached at Scott.O’Connell@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottOConnellTG
source http://www.omnipopmag.com/2017/03/17/teachers-union-rally-calls-for-action-on-pcbs-in-worcester/
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