The Juneau Schools Board has decided to stop investigating the communication of the district regarding last year’s flooring sealant incident .
Staff mistakenly served milk to students last summer instead of floor sealant. Some parents felt that the school had not contacted them in time. Although the school board had been considering spending $11,500 to conduct a third-party investigation into how the district communicated about the incident, it was voted down by the board at Tuesday’s meeting.
Martin Stepetin, Board member, stated that previous investigations into the incident had been sufficient.
He said that he has learned a lot about how to prevent this from happening again.
Member Emil Mackey said that it was worth continuing the investigation if it could restore trust between families. NANA Management Services, the district’s food vendor made the error of delivering floor sealant to a warehouse. However, it was the responsibility of the district for communicating with families.
He said that while there may only be a handful of people who are still concerned, there might be others that are really worried about it. But what if there’s something we don’t know that we can learn?
Superintendent Bridget Weiss stated that trust was being restored, partly due to students’ continued attendance in the RALLY summer schools program.
She said that RALLY had families staying there every day of the summer. “This is because it was one incident and not a series of problems .”
The incident was investigated by several groups, including the Juneau Police Department and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Following the investigation, NANA established new shipping and receiving protocols.
