Pre-K and kindergarten classes at P.S. 372 The Children’s School in Gowanus were temporarily moved out of the basement of the school’s annex building, where contaminants are lingering in the air even after a mitigation system was installed.
Students will be shifted to higher floors of the annex and into the main school building to grant state officials “more access” to the basement while they install a supplemental ventilation system, superintendent Dr. Keisha McCoy said in a Sept. 4 letter to parents and families.
The move came after months of frustration and outrage from parents and community members.
“The New York City Department of Education’s last-minute decision on Friday, less than a week before school starts, to relocate pre-K and kindergarten students from the basement classrooms at P.S. 372 because of the presence of toxic vapors speaks volumes about New York State’s complete failure to protect our children and the teachers and staff of P.S. 372 for more than two years,” said parent Julia Finnegan, in a statement.
The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation first discovered high levels of potentially-hazardous Volatile Organic Compounds in the soil below the annex basement and in the basement air in 2024. Officials opted to install a sub-slab depressurization system, which vents toxic vapors into the outdoor air, preventing them from entering the building.
The system was in place by early 2025. But testing performed that summer found that the system was not decreasing the amount of contamination in the indoor air.
“The results showed that the volatile organic compound concentration within the indoor air remained the same as – or similar — to pre-mitigation results,” said DEC environmental engineer Aaron Fischer at an Aug. 24 town hall meeting with P.S. 372 parents.
The annex basement still contained higher-than-allowable levels of ethylbenzene and m,P-Xylene, with borderline levels of O-Xylene, results show. Smaller amounts of other petroleum-related contaminants, like benzene, trimethylbenzene and toluene were also detected.
Despite extensive testing, the DEC was not able to determine the source of the contamination — they had previously thought it was coming either from a past oil tank spill at the site or from a Brownfield across the street — and could not figure out how exactly it was getting in.
But that information was not shared with P.S. 372 families for nearly a year. Parents were outraged when officials revealed the information in a letter sent in June, and worried that children and teachers had been exposed to the contaminants for a year without knowing.
The agency is planning to install a Heat Recovery Ventilator system in the annex to create positive air pressure and prevent vapors from seeping in. The system has already been approved by the Department of Buildings and the Department of Education, but DEC did not present a clear timeline for installation.
In a Sept. 8 statement, the agency said installation has begun.
“Total duration of construction time is dependent on system fabrication and retrofitting the existing annex building. DEC will continue to update New York City Department of Education and P.S. 372 on installation progress for dissemination to the school community,” said DEC spox Adanna Roberts.
McCoy, the district superintendent, said in her Sept. 4 letter that the room relocation will end when the HRV is installed.
For now, the agency is running the school’s HVAC system at full blast, with ventilation louvers fully open, to create positive pressure and increase ventilation. Testing has found that with the HVAC running full blast, levels of contamination in the air reduced significantly.
“Essentially, every classroom … is within our typical background range, which is great news,” said Dan Tucholski, a public health specialist with the state’s Department of Health, at the Aug. 24 meeting. “We’re very encouraged by that. The HVAC system as it’s running at 100% is doing the mitigation job in combination with the SSDS.”
But some parents say that after two years of failed mitigation efforts and little communication, they feel misled and distrustful of DEC and DOH, and worry about their kids’ safety.
One parent, Michelle Tsai, slammed the virtual Aug. 24 town hall as a “sham.” The school and state officials took questions in advance and did not allow attendees to speak during the meeting, and did not reply to questions sent in the chat.
“You know, after two plus two and a half years, we don’t believe that this proposal is going to be effective enough to achieve our goal, which is 100% toxin-free air for our kids, for the faculty, for the staff,” Tsai said.
She and other parents want the state to fully remediate the contaminated soil, and worry the mitigation systems won’t be enough if the chemicals remain in the ground below the school.
Walter Hang, founder of the environmental advocacy group Toxics Targeting, said the site is surrounded by contaminated sites — there are at least three active or recently-completed Brownfield or state Superfund sites within a few blocks of the school — and advocated for full remediation of the contaminated soil around the annex building.
He pointed specifically to a petroleum spill reported at the site in 2004.
At the time, he said, experts were unable to determine where the petroleum was coming from, but recommended the installation of a soil vapor barrier to prevent gases from rising up into the basement. A later investigation speculated the contaminants may have spread from an oil spill across the street, and the case was closed without further action or cleanup.
Asked at the Aug. 24 meeting why the state was pursuing mitigation over remediation, Fischer indicated it is because the agency has been unable to find the source of contamination.
Officials have repeatedly emphasized that while levels of some VOCs exceeded state standards, those standards are “conservative,” and test results have been sent to the DEC’s Bureau of Toxic Substances for evaluation.
“They’re very conservative,” Tucholski said. “They have sensitive receptors in mind, so children, children with special needs. These numbers are based on lifetime exposure, so it’s every day of your life for your entire life. So there is a lot of kind of a buffer, if you will, built into them … the concentrations thus far have shown that there’s no health hazard associated with them.”
P.S. 372 is non-zoned, and was the first “full inclusion” elementary school in the city, enrolling local students and District 75 special education students.
Graves has two sons, Frankie and Ray, enrolled at P.S. 372. Frankie has been attending for four years, she said, and just started third grade; Ray went to Pre-K there last year and started kindergarten on Thursday.
“The teachers are amazing, they’re fantastic. It’s a very special place, particularly for kids who have IEPs like our eldest son, and the kids also really love the school,” she said.
The contaminated air in the basement — where Ray’s kindergarten classes were set to take place — has Graves on edge. Instead of feeling excited about back-to-school, she and her husband are losing sleep over the safety of their son, his friends and their teachers.
She has considered finding a new school for Ray, and worries about whether years of exposure will impact her sons’ health in the future.
“I think the unknown is very scary,” she said.
Some of the chemicals detected at low levels are carcinogens, and the contaminants detected above state standards — ethylbenzene, M,p-Xylene and O-Xylene — carry their own risks.
Long-term exposure to ethylbenzene can cause damage to the nervous system, hearing and other organs, like the kidneys, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and is classified as a “possible human carcinogen.” Xylenes can cause similar issues, and it is not known whether or not it can cause cancer in humans. Short-term exposure to the contaminants can also cause irritation to mucus membranes and dizziness.
“We don’t know when or if [a health issue] would present itself,” Graves said. “It could be something that they get when they’re my age. You want your kids to have the best life that they possibly can. You stop, you know, using plastic. You make sure that they eat organic. You get them to bed at 8 o’clock so they have enough sleep. You don’t want to put them in a place where they could get sick.”
Tsai and Graves said communication from DEC from school principal Rosa Amato has been sparse and confusing, and Graves said she worries parents will not be informed if the HRV fails, too.
Days before the school announced that Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms would be relocated, Graves said she would feel better if the students were moved out of the annex basement until the HRV system was installed. But she and other parents are calling for more.
On Aug. 17, Tsai and parent group Clean Air for 372 started a petition to Gov. Kathy Hochul, demanding she take “urgent action” to ensure the school’s air is free of toxins.
The petition alleges that the state has failed to comply with a state regulation that requires contaminated sites to be restored to “pre-disposal conditions, to the extent feasible.” As of Sept. 10, the petition had amassed nearly 900 signatures.
“We need the DEC to clean up the toxic site under and around the school,” Tsai said. “This is a site that’s known to exceed state regulatory requirements. You know, but so we need both a sort of short term plan and a long term plan.”
Hochul did not return request for comment.
