Source: Sarah / R1 Digital
Philadelphia School Superintendent, Dr. Hite says he is not going anywhere and that he plans to fix the asbestos issue plaguing Benjamin Franklin High School and Science Leadership Academy. Watch below.
Dr Hite said the asbestos was found in Benjamin Franklin High School and Science Leadership Academy; two schools that share one building. The asbestos was found in the boiler room. No classrooms are in the boiler room and no students have access to the boiler room. The did all of he tests in and around the boiler room, in elevator shafts, and stairwells and all around the school and all of the tests came back below standard except for the boiler room.
Have their been asbestos checks in other Philadelphia schools?
Yes, we have to check every school whether it was built after 1980 or not. We are required by federal law to do inspections every six months and those inspections are not done by us they are done by an environmental consulting group on a contracted basis.
On people calling for his resignation:
There are a whole bunch of people involved in this and there is no sense in talking about a whole bunch of people; I’m ultimately accountable. I get that. One of the reasons we had the town hall was because people were emotional about it. They were asking for an opportunity to communicate their displeasure with this whole situation and with me; so I wasn’t surprised with that. To me it communicated the pain that people were feeling because of the anxiety that this whole thing has caused. I apologize for that but the point I made then and the point I’ll make now is that I’m gonna fix it. That is the responsible thing to do. The responsible thing to do is not to walk off and leave a mess. I plan to fix. We plan to make sure going forward that we have these types of projects that will result in something that is exciting.
On Monday October 14th Ben Franklin students and staff will relocate to 926 W. Sedgley Street to the former Khepera Charter School. Students of Science Leadership Academy are moving to school district headquarters at 400 N. Broad Street and have other classes at Rodeph Shalom Synagogue at 400 N. Broad Street.
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