FLORISSANT, Mo. — The Hazelwood Board of Education officially decided to split up Jana Elementary School students and staff on Nov. 28.
This comes after the Boston Chemical Corporation conducted an independent study on the elementary school in October. Its results showed the school had high levels of radioactive contamination inside areas of the school, and on the playground.
Jana Elementary students and staff are currently doing virtual learning but will be redistricted to one of five locations: Barrington Elementary, Brown Elementary, Coldwater Elementary, McCurdy Elementary, and Walker Elementary. Jana Elementary PTA President Ashley Bernaugh is just one parent who said she’s frustrated with these plans for the Jana community and the schools they will redistrict to.
"We hope our concerns will be joined by the other schools because they do not want their schools overexploited and their teachers extra taxed,” she said.
She said those concerns belong to the entire Jana community. The Hazelwood School Board voted to redistrict the elementary school after an independent study found radioactive contamination there.
"That strategic plan has five prongs, the fifth one being parent engagement,” she said. “Yet the ideas of parent engagement that were presented absolutely left out parents."
Bernaugh and other parents said they've been left out of these conversations.
Several parents expressed their frustrations with the Hazelwood School District at Tuesday night's board meeting.
"It's a disappointing day to hear what we had to hear today,” parent Jason Bell said. “We thought we'd have an opportunity to join with you, to be able to work together to figure out a solution, for Jana.”
"I don't wanna fight, I just wanna get it resolved,” another parent, Patrice Strickland, added.
Even after hearing concerns, the district is moving forward with plans to put students and staff into five different buildings across the district.
"When you “X” stakeholders from the conversation, that's when this becomes something it didn't need to be,” Bernaugh said.
The Army Corps of Engineers is now finally involved, currently soil sampling on and inside school grounds.
Bernaugh said conversation lacks here, too. As of Wednesday, November 2nd, Bernaugh told 5 On Your Side the Corps had finally responded to the PTA’s request for conversation but said they told her it would be after their testing of the elementary school is complete.
“Unfortunately, that means for the PTA, we still won't have answers for why they suddenly had a change of heart in testing our Jana Elementary school grounds,” she said.
Bernaugh and other parents are pleading for all parties involved to work together and fearing for what could happen if they don't.
“We expected we'd have Hazelwood at our backs,” she said.
5 On Your Side has reached out to the Hazelwood School Board several times, asking to expand on plans for Jana Elementary and to answer questions about this whole process.
They declined interviews and referred our team back to the statement they sent to parents.