NANKIN — Roughly a dozen parents expressed concern and anger on Monday with school officials over the way Mapleton School District handled a late August incident that left 43 students hospitalized.
Parents spoke their minds during a regularly scheduled board of education meeting on Monday.
The comments came 10 days following the emergency evacuation on Aug. 29 of Mapleton’s middle and high schools because of an unknown incident that led to the hospitalization of 43 students.
District, health and law enforcement officials have yet to determine a cause but have ruled out criminal activity and irregularities in the district’s food services, water quality, chemicals and cleaning products, classroom activities, deliveries and other general operations.
Parents have called the incident a “big-time communication failure.” Many of those sentiments were shared again Monday.
Concerns
Specifically, parents’ concerns included:
- not being informed of their children’s whereabouts
- a perceived lack of empathy from district officials
- enforcement of a cell phone use policy during the emergency
- the problem that led to hospitalizations has not been determined
- having a board meeting at 4:30 p.m., when many parents are still working
Tracy Smith, a parent, said no one could tell her where her daughter was on Aug. 29. She said it took more than 30 minutes before she knew she had been transported to a hospital.
“What had happened was she was put in an ambulance without a record of her ever being put in an ambulance,” Smith said.
At the beginning of the year, Smith said she signed a form informing the school that she did not give consent on emergency treatment.
Wesley Williams, another parent, said his daughter went to OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital. She did not receive oxygen, he said. On Aug. 29, she tested for abnormally high levels of carbon monoxide, he said.
Other kids, however, did receive oxygen, which aids in eliminating carbon monoxide, he said. Williams, who has worked as a firefighter for 24 years, said there needed to be a “standardized way to test at the hospital.”
School officials have said crews from Columbia Gas and CCG Automation did not find gas leaks and that carbon monoxide levels were normal in the heating, venting and cooling systems.
Another parent, Lexi Parks, said she felt hurt by the apparent lack of care from administrators.
“A simple phone call (on the days after Aug. 29) would have gone a very long way, especially to know that you care about families,” Parks said. “It’s hard to believe that no one had the good sense to even check up on them … none of you had the sense to care.”
Katherine Peterson, whose daughter was not hospitalized, was concerned that the incident’s cause has yet to be determined.
“How do we know this is not gonna happen again?” she asked. “I don’t want silence. I want you guys to talk to us.”
Connie Lawless shared a similar sentiment. She noted the district’s Aug. 29 statement that cleared the buildings for students to re-enter to grab belongings.
“So that tells me one or two things. There’s incompetence, because you don’t care. There’s something that you didn’t find that just made 43 children sick hours ago that you can’t rule out. And you let them come back in regardless it it was still hanging around. Or you knew what happened and you didn’t want to let us know,” she said.
‘Room for improvement’
Board members did not address specific concerns. However, at one point, board vice president Vince Hartzler, apologized.
“We hear you. We’re not saying we did everything perfectly. Communication can be improved. Those of you who did not receive communication, I apologize for that,” he said.
The district has vowed to “review and strengthen” its emergency operations plan and give attention to its procedures and protocols related to:
- building evacuation
- relocation with student and staff attendance
- parent reunification
“Additionally, communication among district staff, students, parents, law enforcement and first responders will be carefully evaluated, with improvements expected in procedures, protocols, technologies and support services,” reads the district’s statement published on Sept. 7.
District officials did not provide additional details on which specific procedures and protocol would be improved upon on Monday.
Ashland County Sheriff Kurt Schneider said some of those improvements may involve identifying technology upgrades that would improve cell phone reception and internet connections.
He said there was equipment from the Ashland County Emergency Management Agency that was unavailable on Aug. 29. So, he said he is looking into obtaining that piece of equipment for “redundancy’s sake.”
Schneider also pointed out that emergency radios worked well on Aug. 29 — but not so well inside the building. He said a “repeater system” and upgrading various software would improve that issue.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Schneider said. “And we’ve already started working on that and we’ll continue to work on that with our partners here at the school and all our safety partners around the county.”
