Philly’s Kensington High shuttered after asbestos issue discovered during HVAC replacement

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Kensington High School students will start the school year a 20-minute drive away from their campus after an asbestos issue was discovered during an HVAC renovation project.

The school’s roughly 450 students will attend school until the end of the calendar year in the Northeast Philadelphia building that formerly housed Austin Meehan Middle School before that school closed in 2022. Deputy Superintendent of Operations Oz Hill announced the plan in a letter to the Kensington High School community Thursday.

“We know this is disappointing news, but the health and safety of our students, staff, and workers is our first priority,” Hill wrote.

The installation of a new HVAC system at Kensington High School was halted after an asbestos inspector “identified a concern about demolishing the old system,” Hill wrote in his letter. A teacher had recently described the HVAC renovation project to Chalkbeat as “like things were being figured out on the fly.”

Hill said details about the “schedule, transportation, and all logistics” of Kensington High’s move to Meehan would be forthcoming.

Last year, the School District of Philadelphia became the first in the country to be criminally charged over its “knowing and willful” violation of federal asbestos management law. An agreement the district signed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in order to defer prosecution described the presence of asbestos, closures due to asbestos, late inspections and delayed reporting in 31 schools, including Kensington High School. Federal prosecutors pointed to damaged asbestos, including an “imminent hazard,” that was found at Kensington High in 2019 and later reported by the School District as fixed.

Philly School District grapples with repeated HVAC, facilities issues

Modernizing and consolidating aging buildings is a core goal of the district’s controversial facilities master plan, which includes the closure of 17 schools.

Under the plan, Kensington High School is slated to remain open, receive upgrades including accessibility improvements, restroom renovations and new painting, and accept additional students from the Penn Treaty High School catchment area starting in the fall of 2027. Design work for more building improvements could begin this school year, but only if the district is granted additional government or philanthropic funding, according to the plan.

Roughly a quarter of Philadelphia district schools still lack adequate air conditioning, despite a concerted effort from the district to upgrade HVAC systems in recent years. When school starts later this month, 52 schools — down from 118 four years ago — will still be at risk for closing and sending students home to learn remotely if temperatures spike, Chalkbeat reported.

The Kensington High School’s HVAC renovation project will resume while students are at Meehan. The district will proactively remove asbestos materials in the Kensington building “where we can minimize future risk of damage,” Hill wrote in his letter.

“When Kensington students and staff return to the building in January, they will be welcomed back to a healthy, more comfortable space for learning,” he wrote.