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[Updated October 5 at 12:11 p.m.] UPDATE: ACPS announced Friday that Naomi Brooks Elementary will reopen most of its classrooms and offices on Monday, October 7. The gymnasium and its surrounding areas will remain closed.

On Friday, September 27, students at Naomi Brooks Elementary School, formerly known as Matthew Maury, found themselves at home on a spontaneous day off. The previous day, school officials had discovered a dangerous chemical in two classrooms, the main office and the school clinic: lead, which eats away IQ and increases violent tendencies, according to decades of research.

Families were first informed of the issue on September 26 in a message from Principal Suzanne Hess. 

“We are writing to inform you about a situation that came to our attention regarding a concern that appropriate mitigation efforts had not been followed by a contractor performing work at the school for window replacement,” said Hess in the email. 

“Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to resolve this issue and prepare our affected classrooms and offices for next week,” said Hess, indicating that school would be back in session shortly. However, when Monday rolled along, Hess informed parents that the school would be closed for the entire following week as well, and that students would complete asynchronous learning packets at home.

While students celebrated the unplanned vacation, parents suddenly faced the burden of entertaining their children for a week, while also juggling employment obligations.

“For a lot of families who don’t have access to childcare and have both parents working jobs, this is a hardship,” said Brandon Davis*, a Brooks parent of a fifth grade student, whose name has been altered for fear of retribution. “This is especially true for some of our families who are not native English speakers or who may be lower income.”

The school acknowledged some of these concerns, in addition to worries about students who rely on school-provided breakfast and lunch, in a follow-up email sent on September 27. The email provided further information regarding online learning activities, food resources, and health guidance from the Alexandria Health Department. 

The city and school system set up food distribution sites at various places around Alexandria, including Charles Houston Recreational Center

Along with food access, an initial concern from parents was the loss of instructional time. To mitigate these concerns, Brooks teachers provided educational packets for each student that included activities and lessons. The packets were available online as well as on paper, expanding accessibility.

Whether or not the packets will prevent learning loss, parents say they are thankful that Brooks leadership prepared them in the middle of an emergency.

“I give the school a lot of credit for getting those packets out in extremely short order,” said Davis, adding he would “probably attribute that to some of the lessons learned during the pandemic.”.

Despite these efforts, some parents say that Alexandria City Public Schools should be doing more. 

“[Asynchronous work] should not be our first option when a school building needs to close unexpectedly,” said Nathan Macek, the parent of a Brooks third grade student, in a widely-circulated letter to ACPS leadership, the Alexandria Health Department, and the city council. 

In his letter, Macek expressed frustration that ACPS did not have a contingency plan for emergency school closures. He suggested that the city utilize public recreational centers to hold classes, even if that meant the cancellation of previously scheduled activities.

“Getting children to alternate locations would be much less disruptive to families than putting the burden on parents to come up with their own contingency plans on the spot,” said Macek. “For a school division that prides itself on “Equality For All”, telling one elementary school to do worksheets at home while other schools in the district remain open doesn’t seem particularly equitable.”

Many in the Brooks community seemingly agree with Macek, as an online petition asking ACPS to create an in-person learning plan has garnered 65 signatures. However, other parents disagree.

“The implication that otherwise scheduled public classes at Rec centers should be canceled and that Brooks students should be given immediate priority to use those spaces is presumptuous,” said Davis. “This is a significant health and safety incident, and while we want to ensure there is no loss of instruction, that is not the only concern the city and ACPS have to deal with.”

Parents say they have lots of questions about the lead exposure,  as they say details about the construction project that caused the exposure were not made accessible. 

“We did not know very much about the summer construction,” said Davis. “Frankly, I don’t think we would be expected to know much about that because we rely on the school district get the work done in a way that is safe and healthy for the folks who use the school.”

One thing that was promised, however, was that construction would be complete by the end of the summer.When it had not been completed on the first day of school, safety questions from parents arose.

“When the project was not completed on schedule during the summer, why was it suddenly acceptable to perform while children are in the building?” Macek said in his email.

Parents said they were especially outraged about initial health advice from the school system.. At first, ACPS told parents to seek lead testing from private providers. This response was “appalling,” according to Macek, and Davis said he agreed.

“I think this is another example of poor communication, strategy and delivery by ACPS,” Davis said. “It was a very tone deaf reaction, effectively saying to the families and the faculty and the staff, ‘We created this problem but you’re on your own to figure out how big of a problem and how it has affected you.’ That was very poorly thought out.”

ACPS has since pivoted and is offering free lead testing from the city health department.

“From the get-go they should have said ‘We advise everybody to get tested, we are working on options through the health department, but in the meantime if you feel like you need to have something done more immediately, you can certainly reach out to your care providers, etc.,’” said Davis. “But that’s not what they did.”

Despite dissatisfaction with ACPS leadership, parents say the Brooks community is helping them through seemingly uncertain times.

“Principal Hess has been online and offline, very active, very communicative, and very helpful,” said Davis. “We know that she and her staff are as frustrated and as angry as the families are about what happened. This is not on them; this is on ACPS, their choice of contractor and their oversight of the contractor, or lack thereof.” 

Although the path forward is still unclear, many in the Brooks community said they have found comfort among each other.

“We have a really great community at Brooks and a great group of families who are willing to chip in and help each other and share information with one another,” Davis. “That’s part of the reason why we love being a part of it.”

Pursuant to Theogony’s staff manual, altered names of anonymous sources appear with an asterisk upon first use and are always italicized.