Westport School System Challenged

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Westport School System Challenged

Westport-News - Westport,CT*

By Luongo

09/05/2007

http://www.westport-news.com/ci_6806516

Parents and teachers at last week's meeting of the special King's

Highway Elementary School (KHS) Maintenance Review Committee

expressed lack of confidence in the Westport school system's past

and present handling of air-quality issues and health complaints at

the elementary school.

At one point in the meeting, parent committee member Tarshis

chided the school administration for not making parents aware of

environmentally related health complaints several years ago.

" Seven years later, we have the same pattern. It's relevant to talk

about past matters to have confidence [today]. We have been told

that there were no complaints, " Tarshis said, as she sought

assurances that such complaints would be made known, if they were to

occur again in the new school year.

" This is not the purpose of this meeting and we're not going to

discuss it, period, " Landon told the committee, making it clear that

committee member , the assistant superintendent for

business, would not be responding to the issues raised by Tarshis.

But veteran Staples High School English teacher Gerry Kuroghlian,

who represents the teachers association on air quality issues, said

he had relevant information showing that " teachers have been

reluctant to report " environmental problems because of " past

reprimands. "

He was supported in this assessment by Coleytown Middle School

Teacher Horrigan, who said that the " general attitude of the

staff is distrustful " of the administration, when it comes to

reporting on such matters.

Timmins, a KHS parent and member of the Representative Town

Meeting, said he assumed that every visit to the nurse is registered

with the child's classroom noted. He said that would make it

possible to track frequency of visits to the nurse by room number

and the reason for the visits.

" We can see area and room patterns, " Timmins said, adding that this

would make it possible for the school system to address possible air-

quality problems in the school by specific locations.

Landon took issue with that comment, saying that such information

could be used to identify a student, leading to violations of health-

confidentiality laws. " There's no way we can release that

information, " he said.

In reply, Timmins said that would amount to " hiding " behind the

confidentiality laws. Instead, he suggested that the school

system " look at the information in a macro-way " for developing " good

data " about the health of children without revealing individual

illnesses.

Committee Chairman Gavin said that a goal of the committee

would be to recommend a systematic way for parents to report their

health concerns and for the school system to keep a record of these

concerns. " Presumably there will be a registry, " he said.

But warned committee members that any health details

received by the committee would be considered in the public domain

and subject to state freedom-of-information requests, which, he

said, could end up compromising the confidentiality rights of

parents.

In a letter to parents on Aug. 27, said that with mold

remediation completed and all classrooms " thoroughly inspected and

undergoing comprehensive cleaning, " he was " confident that each and

every classroom within the main KHS building will be safe for

occupancy by children and staff for this new semester. "

But parent committee member Alison Reilly said that she has already

been getting calls from KHS parents concerning their children

complaining of " itchy eyes " from their few days back at school.

Reilly said that she is referring parents to the school nurse and

the health district and is also keeping a log of the calls.