I was getting early-morning texts from my sisters and daughters. Isn’t this the school you taught at? Did you teach there? Have you heard about this? The answer to each question was “yes.” The question dealt with the breaking news about Jana Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District. It is a school making national news because of radioactive contamination at rates as high as 22 times greater than normal.
I taught at Jana for more than a decade. My last name at that time was Whittenburg and I taught sixth-grade science and health with a team of two of the finest teachers I have ever worked with. We had that education thing wired. Our students didn’t cause trouble, scored well above district, state and national averages and generally had a good time. When I went on to administration, college instructor and then retirement I was sure I had left Jana and its happy memories behind.
Then came all those texts, stories on CNN, MSNBC and national network television.
Unfortunately, the dangers that I and my students faced are not unique to one school, one district or one state.
The reason for the contamination was a source everyone who lived in the North County of St. Louis area knew. What is now a densely suburban area started out as farmland. During and after World War II, the area north of the airport was a dumping ground for military debris, including the detritus of our burgeoning nuclear defense. The story is an old one: bag it, bury it, forget and deny you know a thing about how that radioactive material got in the creek.
We have seen this same scenario before. There are many dumping grounds containing both military and industrial waste that does no one any good.
Coldwater Creek runs behind Jana and the school was built in its flood plain. The students I taught played in that creek. The soybean field I walked along when I was on playground duty was watered with that creek. The school was built on the contaminated soil and contamination filled the air we breathed. What happened over the years of prolonged exposure has many of us asking questions.
The fact is, America has had a love/hate relationship with public education since its inception. We want good schools but at bargain prices.
Public education funding goes back to a historic piece of legislation. When we annexed the Northwest Territories (present-day Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois and parts of Minnesota) we did so with a body of laws called the Northwest Ordinance. This amazing document is a monument to American problem solving. Signed on July 13, 1787, a scant 11 years after we declared our independence, it outlined how all newly acquired lands would enter the union. It ensured legislative representation for all states and required that the territories provide for a free and public education. It would take Europe more than 100 years to do what this country did when we were barely a decade old.
Putting their money where their mouth was, the framers of this law required that one section (a square mile of land) out of each 100 be set aside for the building and maintenance of a public school. This was the world’s first codified attempt by an entire nation to provide a free public education. The results were certainly inconsistent and incomplete, but our intent was laudable from the beginning.
Land was the most precious commodity our forefathers had. If they were going to give up land for the purpose of general education, they would need some members of the local community to administer this quasi-governmental body. The duties of controlling the school fell to a locally elected school board. They still do.
Unfortunately, the land that is acquired for schools is land nobody else wants. It is accepted without intense vetting. When problems arise, dueling agencies argue about who truly owns the problem. For that, I have an answer. The problem belongs to the children who run across the playground, who get dirty and laugh and come in with dust covering their clothes. The problem belongs to the teachers who work year after year amid a poison that cannot be seen, smelled or tasted. The problem belongs to the people least empowered to deal with it.
My years at Jana were good years. But I had better hope that the futures of the children I taught then have been revealed. Yet, I keep the faith.
Louise Butler is a retired educator and published author who lives in Edinburg. She writes for The Monitor’s Board of Contributors.
