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In a recent meeting, the Community Board serving Kingsbridge, Riverdale and Marble Hill, tried to sort out a lead scare at a local elementary school and its implications on plans to alter the community’s school district. This past November, the agenda at Community Board 8 centered on the closing of P.S. 37 due to high levels of lead at the school. Experts have said that the construction of a new EMS dispatching station on a site adjacent to nearby John F. Kennedy High School is one of the causes for high counts of the contaminant at P.S. 37. P.S. 37 is next to John F. Kennedy High. State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who was invited to address the meeting, said that all children who attend P.S. 37 will be provided with free lead testing. At the same time, he was critical of the decision to close the school and the fact that parents were alarmed unnecessarily. “We all agree that if there are excessive levels of lead, we must address the problem immediately, but it appears that there are people out there,, including members of the School Board, who are deliberately creating a panic among parents in order to advance their own political agenda, namely preventing the construction of M.S. 368 and derailing the M.S. 141 reconstruction plan.” Currently, Community Board 8 is mired in a battle between richer residents in Riverdale and middle class and poor residents in Kingsbridge and Marble Hill. The debate is focused on zoning changes and the construction of M.S. 368 in Kingsbridge. The new Kingsbridge middle school, which has gained the support of Riverdale parents would effectively allow a middle school in Riverdale, M.S. 141, to accept only students from upper-class Riverdale and exclude children from the Marble Hill and Kingsbridge neighborhoods that border Riverdale yet are poorer communities. Oliver Koppell, resident and president of the local school board, says that the plan would save M.S. 141 from academic mediocrity and bring back middle class students who have long ago abandoned the local public school system. Opponents of the plan describe it as a racist scheme by Riverdale parents to keep Marble Hill’s children out of M.S. 141, and to avoid sending Riverdale children to John F. Kennedy High School, which is in Kingsbridge. For well over a year, district school board members who oppose the plans for M.S. 368 and M.S. 141 have claimed that the site of the new school is a toxic waste dump. There have been numerous studies beginning in the late 1960’s when John F. Kennedy High School was built and going through to the 1990's that show the land to be safe, factions that support the new school say. The Community Board seems to side with the new plans, too. It voted unanimously to continue its support of the redistricting plans at its November meeting. Dinowitz meanwhile raised questions on the procedure school officials followed in testing the site, noting that the local media was contacted before the schools’ superintendent. Dinowitz also noted that a sample was given to a lead paint specialist Lydia Saltzman, who held on to it for a day before turning it over to a lab for analysis. Saltzman was apparently given access to the school by P.A. President Sylvia Figueroa who is a vocal opponent of the plan to restructure M.S. 141. At the meeting it was stated that lead, which was found in two ducts inside the school, was cleaned up and that the situation no longer posed a hazard. It was also pointed out that numerous lead tests were conducted for the Board of Education by ATC Associates, an independent lab. Those tests showed the building to be safe for both adults and children. According to Democratic Party District Leader Mrs. Theresa Bastone, who attended the meeting, the lead scare is unfounded. “It is the children who are truly suffering in the ongoing debate with certain School Board members,” she said after the meeting. Meanwhile, Councilwoman June M. Eisland addressed the meeting and said she would like to see the new EMS take additional safety precautions to protect children attending nearby schools.
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