I Deserve to Know
By Michelle Chapman
This morning I dropped my daughter off for her first day at her new school. And like every parent who’s started their child off at a new school, there are a million things I’m worried about. Will she like her teacher? Will she make new friends? Will she be able to keep up? Is she prepared? But this year my main concern is whether her new school is contaminated with toxic PCBs like her last one was.
I found out about PCBs last year, when my daughter attended 4th grade at Harlem Link Charter School. But it wasn’t from the principal or anyone at the Department of Education, it was from a fellow New York Communities for Change (NYCC) member, who told me that even though there were more than 750 school that could be contaminated, the DOE was doing nothing to find out if our kids’ schools had PCBs. If you want to find out if your