Dear Parents, Teachers and Community Members,

I wanted to thank all of you for the letters to encourage the district to add me to the panel. Your letters along with the teachers persistence at their Friday meeting convinced Sandra Lyon to allow me to sit on the panel to interview and hire the Environmental Engineering Firm EEF. These interviews are tomorrow, Monday, Jan 13, 2013. Please email me at JD18@me.com, if you have any questions you would like me to try and ask at the interviews. I will check my email throughout the process.

I am really touched by this amazing community. Despite the issue we face, I have seen incredible people do incredible things in the name of truth for our kids, our teachers and our school. (btw, when I say teachers, I include staff in there too!)

There are many new things happening on the horizon and I will be posting more updates this week.

One thing that was made very clear to me this last week, is that together we are strong. Uniting the parents and the teachers and our children for a common goal makes us strong and the district saw that this week. I had several teachers call me and text me on Friday after their meeting to share in their excitement that when they banned together, the district finally listened to them.

We all need to follow their lead. United we can ensure that the district do a comprehensive testing of the classrooms and the soil for all toxins found in 2010. This is fairly simple to do and according to the DTSC, quite reasonable, Only then will we know what needs to be done next and if our school is healthy and safe.

The testing up to now has only been samples or a “snapshot” as EPA’s Senior Toxicologist, Patrick Wilson stated at the Dec 12th SMMUSD Board Meeting. He qualified this data as “not EPA data.” What he means is that since the EPA did not oversee or participate in the data collection, this data is not EPA data. This is standard for the EPA. However, since some of the rooms tested for caulk and wipes exceeded the TSCA 50 ppm regulation, the EPA is now responsible for enforcing this cleanup. We do not know how widespread the caulk issue is, but we must ensure that the district test and find out.

There are many Juan Cabrillo (JC) parents that too have asked me what is going on with their school. I will continue to advocate for the same testing at JC. Some of their buildings are older than MHS and they have some of the same health concerns of the MHS teachers.

Again, Thank You all for your support! I really do appreciate it!

Warm Regards,
Jennifer