After a four-hour meeting in the Bellport High School auditorium Wednesday night, South Country school board members announced they would not be closing Frank P. Long Intermediate School over health concerns.
“The consensus has shown us, right now, that we have no definitive reasons to close Frank P. Long at this point,” said the school board’s president, Cheryl Felice.
The groans and shouts from the crowd were immediate.
“Boo!” yelled one resident. “… you have a whole bunch of dead teachers. How much more evidence do you need?”
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After a summer of debate, the decision was made after the board reviewed the findings of Enviroscience Consultants, which undertook a comprehensive test of the air inside and outside of the building, as well as groundwater.
The tests were conducted in July and found no harmful levels of toxic chemicals under state Department of Environmental guidelines. Nearly all tests came back well below guidelines for chemical presences.
In short, the school was given a clean bill of health by Glenn Neuschwender of Enviroscience, which presented the company’s findings to the public Wednesday night and said the building would qualify for LEED Platinum status under the U.S. Green Building Council’s air quality rankings.
One groundwater well 35 feet down showed an elevated level of volatile organic compounds that Neuschwender called “fairly negligible.” Frank P. Long does not use well water. The full report will be available on the district website.
The board’s decision to keep the school open was announced after about 2 and 1/2 hours of testimony from community members, many of whom had been urging the district to shut the school.
“You wasted our entire evening!” one person shouted at the meeting’s end.
Felice insisted that no one’s time was wasted, and later explained to a reporter: “We are moving forward with opening the school, but it’s not going to end,” as far as examining and considering health concerns and options.
Frank P. Long teachers have been pointing to what they say are alarmingly high rates of cancer, cancer-related deaths, autoimmune diseases and respiratory illnesses among the school’s faculty and staff. They blame exposure to toxic chemicals emanating from the Brookhaven Town landfill just .67 miles to the north.
Though no studies have been conducted comparing disease occurrences within Frank P. Long to the general population in recent years, it was mentioned on Wednesday night that the state health department would be conducting such a study in response to local concerns — and at the request of the county.
Some concerned parents spoke again Wednesday night — as they have at prior meetings and to the media — about their children becoming chronically ill and even hospitalized during their time at Frank P. Long, with symptoms that range from rashes to chronic headaches and respiratory issues.
Among the concerned parents who spoke Wednesday night was Janine Allen of Brookhaven, whose 9-year-old son would be starting at Frank P. Long in September — though “not if I can help it,’ she remarked to a reporter before the decision was announced.
She and several others criticized the work of Enviroscience as being simply a snapshot of a property that needs to be examined over long-term periods, especially during times when odors are noticeable from the landfill.
“Our children are in this building for eight hours a day, 185 days a year for two years straight; our teachers for the lifetimes of their careers,” she said. “That is not short-term exposures.”
The chief chemical concerns are benzine, a volatile organic compound (VOC) that was detected at elevated levels outside Frank P. Long in a prior test, and hydrogen sulfide, which carries the rotten egg smell associated with landfills, as well as overall low levels of total VOCs.
Many residents who spoke Wednesday night called it common sense that the landfill would cause health issues over time.
Still others reminded the board — and the rest of the audience — that all the neighborhoods around the landfill are potentially exposed from the dump, not just the school. The town reportedly expects to cap and close the landfill in about eight years.
Felice later reminded that the board’s only power is at the school.
Earlier this summer, the district floated possible relocation options and considerations, should the school board have decided to vacate the building; those options included, among others:
- Increasing class sizes in grades K-8
- Eliminating kindergarten and increasing class sizes in 5-8
- Split sessions at the middle school (6-8/4-5)
- Leasing portable classrooms or a shuttered school building in Sachem
Addressing repeated concerns about exposure to low-level VOCs, Neuschwender told the audience that all schools and other buildings on Long Island would have low levels of VOCs due to everyday materials.
Since the board decided to keep Frank P. Long open, no action was actually taken Wednesday night — thus, no official vote.
One former school board member who spoke, Danielle Skelly, pointed out the proximity of hundreds of local homes to the landfill and Sunrise Highway, as well as other potential sources of harmful chemicals here and elsewhere across Long island.
“To say that Frank P. Long is a sick school is an unfair statement,” she said. “We’re a sick community. We need to do something.”
She called it “unfair to expect the board of education to close a school for an issue that’s community based. We live on a giant aquifer; we suck up chemicals all day long.
She also feared concerns surrounding Frank P. Long would create a further divide between the haves and have-nots in the drastically economically diverse communities of South Country.
“Tto change the course of education, to increase class sizes, to create a great divide … there are members of our community who will make the choice not to send their children to Frank P. Long, because they can afford to send them to private school.’
“I cannot afford to send my child to private school,” she continued. “She will go to Frank P. Long and she will be taught by the phenomenal teachers there, because that’s what they do; they are committed.”
After the meeting, attendees returning to their cars found flyers tucked inside the windshield wipers. The flyer was from a parochial school in Patchogue.
“You have a choice,” it read. “We’re here to help.”
Top: About two dozen residents took to the podium during Wednesday night’s special South Country school board meeting in Bellport to speak to health concerns at Frank P. Long Intermediate School. Over 200 people attended the meeting. (Michael White)
