February 10th, 2006

Officials and school administrators have attended a meeting to inform parents that classrooms at a school where asbestos fibers were discovered last year now show no signs of the substance. The fibers were found in the nearby media center, affecting Yokota East Elementary School. Although parents have been told that there is no sign of asbestos in the classrooms of the school, no indication was given with regards to when the school would re-open.

Bruce Derr, Department of Defense Dependents Schools Japan District superintendent stated: “We’ve made great progress. The classrooms involved … are probably the cleanest rooms in DODEA right now.” Derr confirmed that a report on the testing would be submitted to a bioenvironmental group, at which point an independent test and clean up would be carried out before the school re-opens.

Classrooms adjacent to the media center where the asbestos fibers were discovered were sealed off back in August. Classrooms had to be moved elsewhere in October when a number of rooms were closed for three days. Officials decided to bring in a professional cleaning contractor to go through the classrooms as an extra precaution.

A number of parents attended an initial meeting held in October, although there were fewer parents at the latest meeting as numbers had to be restricted. One parent stated: “We had a lot of scared parents. What are we going to do to stop this from happening again?”