Exclusive | Kids will be moved from basement of contaminated NYC school near Gowanus Canal
New York education officials will remove Pre-K and kindergarten students from a contaminated basement at a Brooklyn elementary school near the Gowanus Canal — after mounting pressure from outraged parents and The Post’s reporting on the issue.The students, who take classes in the basement of PS 372’s annex, will be relocated to other floors and to the school’s main building while state officials install additional ventilation systems to try to filter out toxic air, according to a Friday letter from District 75 Superintendent Dr.Keisha McCoy.McCoy wrote that the students will be “temporarily” relocated so state officials can install additional ventilation systems to try to filter the toxic air out of the building.But parents and experts said the superintendent’s move was too little, too late.“This is an admission that the kids should not have been in the basement the last two and a half years.
This just blows up the entire assertion that there’s no problem,” Walter Hang, the president of Environmental Health Research Group, told The Post.Parents only found out this summer that mitigation efforts that began in 2024 at the annex, located at 219 First St., were unsuccessful.All of the school’s roughly 450 students have classes in the building.
Along with housing the pre-k and kindergarten classrooms, specialty classes like art and gym take place there as well.Many students at PS 372 are provided services and specialized plans to meet developmental, learning, physical and emotional disabilities.The school itself uses a unique model that integrates general education and special needs students in each classroom.School and state officials are maintaining that the levels of dangerous chemicals, including carcinogens benzene and xylene, don’t present an increased health risk to staff and students.“No level of benzene is safe,” said Michelle Tsai, who started a petition criticizing Gov.
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