Safety work slated at Montgomery’s Village School

As opening approaches, spotlight shifts to playground area

By Katie Wagner
Staff Writer
   MONTGOMERY — Parents’ fears that their children were still at risk of asbestos exposure, because of demolition work at the former North Princeton Developmental Center this summer, were eased after township officials shared results of asbestos testing and agreed to pay for cleaning of the Village Elementary School playground, at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting.
   ”We’ve had people do swipe tests before the work started in June,” said Samuel B. Stewart, interim superintendent for the district. “What’s assuring is in all of the assessments there’s never been one result that came anything near the minimum recorded.”
   He added that a third testing for asbestos will be done after all demolition work is completed and the district administrators feel confident Village Elementary will open Sept. 10, as planned.
   Parents of children attending the school were most concerned about the school grounds, where their children would be playing during recess.
   Anne Michaelson, the school’s PTA president, said she was worried that using the playground equipment could cause asbestos exposure and asked if some additional work could be done at the playground, including changing the mulch and power-washing the equipment.
   ”It’s safe for them to be there. From my standpoint, I don’t think cleaning the playground is necessary,” said Jeffrey R. Scott, the school district’s business administrator. “We typically don’t clean playground equipment over the summer.”
   Despite Mr. Scott’s claim that the playground was safe for students to use, the board reached a consensus to have the equipment power-washed.
   Since the kind of mulch underneath the playground equipment is costly, the board decided that a new top layer of mulch will be placed on top of the existing mulch.
   Ms. Michaelson was told that asbestos had been removed from other areas nearby the school that had tested positive for asbestos in the past.
   Parents of Village Elementary School children said they were anxious to see the results of the next asbestos test, which Mr. Stewart said, should occur on Monday.
   School district administrators and staff told parents that test results would be available on the school’s Web site, the following day.
   In other business at the meeting:
   • The school district staff’s progress with character education and its plans to continue it were discussed.
   • New teachers, support staff and administrators were introduced.• A pupil suicide prevention policy had its first reading.