Philly parents seek to intervene in a lawsuit about who has oversight over the safety of city’s school buildings

Philadelphia School District parents and community groups are formally demanding more environmental oversight of the city’s public schools, seeking to intervene in a federal lawsuit over who gets to determine whether school buildings are safe.

In papers filed Friday in federal court, three Philadelphia school parents and two nonprofits asked a judge to join the city’s opposition to a lawsuit filed by the school district in January. The school system alleges that a 2022 law designed to strengthen environmental conditions by establishing an oversight panel and giving the city’s managing director final authority over whether school buildings can open is illegal.

The district can’t be trusted to oversee remediation, the intervenors said: It “has compounded the problem of unsafe buildings by refusing to disclose the timing and results of its building inspections for environmental hazards. For example, on multiple occasions the district has deemed a school building safe, only to suddenly close it for remediation after testing revealed exposed asbestos.”

» READ MORE: City officials say they’ll deny Philly’s school funding without a concrete plan on asbestos

The legal filing to dismiss the district’s lawsuit comes in the same month that two district buildings closed because of damaged asbestos. In the case of Building 21, a district high school in West Oak Lane, school officials admitted they knew about the environmental hazard for two years but did nothing, contrary to their initial public statements. Asbestos, lead paint, and other environmental hazards are a constant concern in Philadelphia’s underfunded school system, which has 200-plus aging buildings.

The school district would not comment on pending litigation, according to a spokesperson, but school board president Reginald Streater said at the time the district’s lawsuit was filed that the district took its responsibility to keep students and staff safe seriously. But the city law “could needlessly threaten the opening of many district school buildings at the start of the next school year, jeopardizing the health, safety, and welfare of our students, especially those who rely on our buildings for shelter and services.”

Streater asserted the district alone has the power to determine whether schools can open. The district also objected to the advisory panel, whose members would include those without scientific training.

» READ MORE: Philly schools knew of damaged asbestos at Building 21 for at least two years before closure

Those seeking to join the city’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit are Lift Every Voice Philly, a group whose aim is “transforming Philadelphia schools by advancing racial, economic, and education justice;” Penn Environment, a nonprofit that fights against climate change; and parents Amara Rockar, Laurie Mazer, and Sonia Rosen, all of whom have children in district schools.

All “have long fought for safe, healthy Philadelphia schools, have encountered roadblocks from the district when seeking basic information about the conditions within their children’s schools, and have, in one case, helped advocate for the passage of the very law at issue,” lawyers from the Public Interest Law Center say in the court papers.

Shanée Garner, executive director of Lift Every Voice Philly, said her organization’s members have children, some with chronic health conditions like asthma, in schools that are very old — including Bryant and Lea Elementaries in West Philadelphia, and Houston Elementary in Mount Airy.

“Although schools are public institutions, our members have to make decisions about their children’s education despite parents often not even being allowed inside school buildings,” Garner said in one court document. “In other words, our members express concern that there are issues with building conditions, yet they can’t access the buildings, and are not provided information to substantiate or calm their fears. Our members express that they try to get basic information about school building air and water quality, but repeatedly hit walls with the school district.”

The school system, Garner noted, exhibits a pattern where it fails to act swiftly when environmental problems crop up at disadvantaged schools, but acts quickly when more privileged schools encounter such issues: For instance, health concerns raised by Benjamin Franklin High School students and staff when their school was an active work site were only addressed when Science Leadership Academy was relocating to their building in 2019.

SLA, with its larger percentage of white, middle-class students, moved in and eventually shut down the building. A similar dynamic played out that same year, when damaged asbestos discovered in its gym quickly closed down Meredith Elementary, in South Philadelphia. The gym was kept open for more than a month when damaged asbestos was discovered at Peirce Elementary, in North Philadelphia, where students are mostly poor.

Even when information is publicly available, the school system makes it difficult to find, the parents said. When Mazer, a parent whose children attend Fanny Jackson Coppin Elementary in South Philadelphia, attempted to access federal asbestos inspection reports about city schools, she and other parents were made to jump through hoops, they said.

“During one of our visits, a representative of the school district stood over us as we reviewed documents and kept advising us to drop our [Right to Know] request. We felt extremely uncomfortable and felt like the district’s goal was to stop us from sharing information with the public,” Mazer said in court documents.

When Rockar, a parent with two children at Lea Elementary, was concerned about ventilation and asbestos at the school in 2021, it took several months, communication with lawyers, the school board, and even former Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. to get accurate information that her kids’ school was safe for occupancy. During the process, officials made her requests seem “unreasonable and irrational,” Rockar said.

“I do not think it should have taken four months of this level of demanding and pushing to receive this information,” Rockar said in the court papers. “The school district likes to tell the parents that we are partners. It seems to me that this partnership ends when parents start asking about building safety and environmental concerns. I was shocked at how adversarial the entire process ended up being.”

Rosen and other parents at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber wanted assurances in 2021 that it would be safe for their children when they returned to the building after a major construction project.

Officials gave assurances but provided no proof, Rosen said. And during a walkthrough on Aug. 28, “there was dust everywhere, walls and ceilings were ripped open or caving in, the bathrooms were far from ready, and there was no air circulation,” Rosen said. It wasn’t until parents held a well-publicized public rally questioning the safety of their school that SLA Beeber’s middle school students were relocated for a year, and the district agreed to provide documentation of building safety.

“My trust in the district was eroded, and I did not feel that the district was taking the health and safety of our children and school staff seriously,” Rosen said. “If the parents of SLA Beeber did not get involved here, our children would have started school in an unsafe building.”