Philly schools delayed asbestos inspections and ‘knowingly’ failed to make repairs, according to DOJ agreement

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

More details have emerged about the School District of Philadelphia’s violation of federal asbestos management law from an agreement it signed with the U.S. Department of Justice in order to defer prosecution of the case.

The district is the first in the country to be criminally charged over its management of asbestos.

Federal law requires school districts to inspect all buildings every three years for asbestos and remediate any damaged asbestos. It also requires surveillance inspections every six months to ensure any asbestos-containing materials do not release dangerous fibers.

The agreement, which the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania shared with WHYY News after the school district signed on to it last week, states that the district’s failure to comply with the law was “knowing and willful.” Carrie Adamowski, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said evidence of this included district personnel “specifically postponing inspections,” as well as efforts at remediation that were “flagrant violations of their legal duties.”

“PSD and its agents purposely delayed inspections, and reports of inspections, beyond the time periods mandated by law,” the agreement reads. “PSD knowingly and regularly failed to make necessary repairs to damaged asbestos-contained materials and to remove damaged friable asbestos in a timely and appropriate manner.”

The agreement describes the presence of asbestos, late inspections, delayed reporting and closures due to asbestos in 31 schools.

If the district complies with federal law and reports its progress to the court over the course of the five-year agreement, federal prosecutors will drop the charges.

Missed inspections and asbestos wrapped in duct tape at Carnell Elementary

Of the nearly three dozen schools mentioned in the agreement, the most extensive problems were at Laura Carnell Elementary School in Northeast Philly.

The School District of Philadelphia did not perform any of the required six-month surveillance inspections at Carnell from late 2017 through early 2019, according to the agreement.

In 2019, two inspections at Carnell uncovered dozens of previously unreported areas containing asbestos, with the district ultimately reporting damaged asbestos across “approximately 100 different classrooms, hallways, offices, a library, gym, attic, an art room, and a restroom.”

The second inspection that year uncovered areas of damaged asbestos that had previously been reported as encapsulated but were not, as well as improper encapsulation by “merely wrapping damaged asbestos with duct tape.” Around 8 feet of damaged asbestos in a gym storage area at Carnell was identified as an “imminent hazard,” despite having been reported in several previous inspections dating back to 2015.

Following the second inspection in late 2019, the district closed Carnell for several weeks.

Late inspections uncover enough asbestos hazards to shutter schools

Several schools that closed due to asbestos did so following inspections that the district performed later than federal law required, according to the agreement.

In 2023, the district shuttered Universal Vare Charter School, Simon Gratz Mastery Charter High School and Frankford High School after discovering damaged asbestos during inspections performed more than a year behind schedule.

That same year, the district also closed S. Weir Mitchell Elementary School, Charles W. Henry Elementary School and Southwark Elementary School due to damaged asbestos, following late inspections months prior.

“As a result of the actions and inactions of the defendant PSD, students, faculty and staff were placed at risk of exposure to friable asbestos,” the agreement reads.

Asbestos areas ‘deleted’ from inspection reports

The agreement describes two instances in which areas of confirmed asbestos were “omitted” or “deleted” from inspection reports.

A 2023 inspection report for William M. Meredith Elementary School left out eight areas of confirmed asbestos that had been identified in a 2018 inspection, according to the agreement. In a report issued the same year for Clara Barton Elementary School, the district “deleted” around 10 areas of asbestos reported there in 2018.

What the agreement requires the district to do

The agreement acknowledges that the district has historically been underfunded and that it “depends on public funding and lacks legal authority to raise its own operating funds, to perform its functions, including those pertaining to the inspection and abatement of asbestos in school buildings.”

In the agreement, the district promises to try to secure both public and private funding to support its asbestos inspections, abatement and — when necessary — wholesale replacement of schools.

The district has already taken several steps over the last few years to come into compliance with federal asbestos management law, according to the agreement. But some have been made possible by temporary funding sources.

For example, the district “normalized” its three-year and six-month inspection schedule across all its facilities with the help of an environmental consulting and engineering firm, Tetra Tech. Hiring this firm cost over $10 million, according to the agreement, which the district funded in part with a multiyear grant from the University of Pennsylvania and federal pandemic relief funding.

The district must continue to comply with federal asbestos management law and report its compliance status to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania twice a year over the course of the agreement. The district can request that the charges be dropped after just three years if it is in full compliance and has been for at least the past six months.

“We are committed to maintaining healthy school environments and securing the resources to do so, while providing all school communities with access to spaces that are safe, welcoming, and conducive to learning, because academic success depends on it,” Board President Reginald Streater said in a statement.