Parents of Robert E. Lee Elementary Dallas, Tx

Kinder Roundup a huge success

2007-03-25T14:46:00.000-06:00

Thanks to all the parents, teachers, and kids who made our 2007 Kindergarten Roundup a huge success. We were honored to have our DISD Trustee Jack Lowe and his wife attend the event. We fought through the warmth of the auditorium (AC trouble) and enjoyed the choir, orchestra, and speeches.

Thanks to the Parents Of Lee group for peppering the neighborhood with yard signs announcing the event. It is so important to get the word out about Lee. Thanks to the faculty of Lee for dressing up in western costume and welcoming the curious new faces checking out our neighborhood school. And thanks to the parents who organized the lunchroom booths to provide information to prospective Lee parents. I wanted to share with you some of the email we have received at parentsoflee.com.

My name is Monica and I was very impressed with Lee at the roundup. I have a 4 and half year old that will start kinder fall 2008. I am also a teacher in the district, so my daytime volunteer time is limited (at least during the school year), but i would like to get involved now volunteering, pta-ing and more with you guys. Please send me more information, or let me know what else i can do to jump on board!!

And another-

I am interested in getting involved. We have a daughter who is 17 months old and we would love to help make Lee a great school for her to attend. Also, loved the float in the parade.- Lydia"

The energy is mounting and our kids will be the beneficiaries of our involvement. Jump on board this party wagon!

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The Greenville Avenue parade

2007-03-17T07:06:00.000-06:00

We are ready for the parade. Thanks to all the parents and kids who got together in the 6000 block of Mercedes to decorate our vintage Jeep and flatbed float. Today is a special day for our neighborhood. With all its rowdiness and partying, the spirit of Greenville Avenue shines and reminds us of just how much we love our neighborhood, and love living here.

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Need your help

2007-03-08T05:27:00.000-06:00

I am interested in getting a list of names to show that there is a large and growing number of people who are actively concerned in the progress of Lee. This would be a petition of sorts that does not say anything other than that. It would be given to the school only. Please let me know if you have any names from your playgroups, neighbors or friends that we can include. I currently have most names of attendees to Parents of Lee meetings but know there are more interested parties out there.

I appreciate all of your help and look forward to making this a school of which we can all be proud!
Laura Legg

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Letter from Superintendent Castro

2007-03-05T14:13:00.000-06:00

Our letter from Area 3 Superintendent Emilio Castro...

"I truly appreciate your feedback and your call for new and innovative approaches to service of all children. Your dedication and commitment in rallying parents and the community are absolutely essential in providing the support necessary for the next steps to occur.

What are those next steps? As Ms. Zapata, yourself, and the other stakeholders of the Lee community continue to create the vision for Lee, know that I will be there to offer support, advice and other resources necessary to take the new vision to scale.

Thank YOU for supporting those ideas, structures and curriculum that address the needs of all children.

EC"

Meeting Recap

2007-03-02T09:07:00.000-06:00

These are some impressions of the meeting.

There is much DISD interest in reinvigorating Lee, and they are very happy that about the influx of fresh parental interest. From the information we recieved, the Dual Language program might not be a fit for Lee. The ratios needed to implement the program may not be sustainable and the program is a long term commitment to be weighed very carefully. The tuition based Pre-K is still a possibility. There are only three elementary schools in DISD with tuition-based Pre-K and more research will be needed on whether this will help accomplish our goal of bringing neighborhood children back to the school.

Personal impression. Having spent quite some time at Lee over the past few months, and seeing the orderly children and the pleasant atmosphere, and the clean, charming classrooms, and the sweetness of our neighborhood school at work- the biggest fascilitator of Lee's turnaround will be PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Once neighborhood parents walk through the school while it is in session, they will seriously consider sending their children there. Lee can sell itself if we raise some awareness and energy, increase the extracurriculars, and beautify the campus. Prospective Lee parents need a reason to get FAMILIAR with their school. We must show them what Lee is doing, and what we are doing. The roundup is VERY important.

Our Parents of Lee group is trying to organize some presence in the Greenville Avenue parade. We also are developing a nice website to replace this meager blog. When parents research schools, websites are among the best sales tools. We think Lee could have a website that would compel people to seriously consider Lee, and show Lee is competitive with private schools.

This is our chance

2007-02-26T19:40:00.000-06:00

Our big meeting at Lee is 3pm Tuesday Feb 27th!

I hope you all will do your best to be there - it will be very important to us. They are holding this for us because we have asked for the information. The Dual Language reps, Early Childhood reps, as well as Principal Zapata and Area Superintendent Emilio Castra will be there. This is huge.

This is our opportunity to find out what the programs require, how we adopt them, what impact they may have and how that will effect our neighborhood school. I learned more about the Dual Language Sat at the DISD community forum and think it is VERY impressive. I think this could be an awesome opportunity for us, but I need all of your involvement to make sure that this is what we want for our school. Thank you for your interest and support. -Laura

GIVE LEE A CHANCE!

2007-02-24T08:33:00.000-06:00

I would like to invite you all to learn more about our neighborhood elementary school, Robert E. Lee, and the campaign to make it something great. There are many ways to show your support, including attending the 75th Celebration May 19, becoming a sponsor and/or joining the Lee or GWRA Early Childhood PTA groups. We are working hard to implement innovative curriculum and reach out to the community for involvement and support. Please visit our web site, www.ParentsOfLee.com and email me, Laura Legg if you would like to know more about how you can help. Together we can make great things happen.

GIVE LEE A CHANCE!
We’re asking for your help. Together we can make Robert E. Lee Elementary the pride of our neighborhood.
Make your tax dollars work for YOU!

Let's join together…

· To increase volunteers
· To increase funds for teacher incentives
To upgrade playground equipment

Better schools =

Better educated children
Increased property values
Community involvement
Better neighborhoods

Did you know?

Lee is a "Recommended" school based on TAKS scores. This is the same TAKS recognition as Stonewall Jackson and Lakewood Elementary!
Lee teachers have an average of over 16 years teaching experience.
Lee is currently enrolled at only 250 students (40% capacity) mostly from OUR neighborhood.
· DISD has committed to prove it has the best public urban schools in the nation by 2010 through "Dallas Achieves"
Lee has the opportunity for an innovative & highly sought-after Dual Language curriculum.

Upcoming Events:

2007-08 Kindergarten Round-Up – 6 PM, March 23, 2007
Town Hall Meeting – Meeting with DISD officials about expanded Pre-K and Dual Language Programs (Coming Soon!)
Lee 75th Anniversary Celebration – May 19, 9:00-noon

Get Involved Now - Join the Robert E. Lee PTA

FIND OUT MORE

The latest news, information, and upcoming events can be found at http://www.parentsofLee.com

Dallas ISD board trustees to hold community forum on Feb. 24 at Skyline

2007-02-23T18:04:00.000-06:00

I think it would be great if a lot of us could attend this.

A DISD community forum this is set for this Sat (Feb 24), from 10:am ‘til noon. There will be introductions and talk about Dallas Achieves and brokering the system. Then will break off into groups including:
Mr. Flores regarding Dual Language
Ms. Ellis regarding the Arts
Mr. Price regarding Athletics
Sounds like a good opportunity to find out more and to get involved. I hope to see you all there!

Dallas ISD board trustees to hold community forum on Feb. 24 at Skyline

A public meeting hosted by Dallas ISD board trustees will be held on Saturday, February 24 at Skyline High School, 7777 Forney Road. The meeting is to receive comments and suggestions on academics, governance, and support of the Dallas ISD and to increase public awareness and participation in issues facing the district. Trustees Leigh Ann Ellis, District 3; Edwin Flores, District 1; Ron Price, District 9; and General Superintendent Michael Hinojosa are hosting the meeting. For more information, call (972) 925-5555.

According to the DISD official that answers that phone, the event is from 10:am til noon.
There will be introductions and talk about Dallas Achieves and brokering the system. Then will break off into groups including
Mr. Flores regarding Dual Language
Ms. Ellis regarding the Arts
Mr. Price regarding Athletics
Sounds like a good opportunity to find out more and to get involved. We already have GWRA t-shirts (baby to adult sizes) if you would like to wear them to find one another and let the district know we are there. Please let me know if you would like one.

Laura

The Road to Broad

2007-02-19T16:38:00.000-06:00

This is why you should be excited about Dallas Schools and Lee's march to the forefront.

Michael Hinojosa: A district transformed

I'm willing to put in on the line, says Michael Hinojosa, Superintendent says DISD will win this urban prize by 2010.

10:23 AM CST on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 from Dallas Morning News

"And the nominees are ..."

The worldwide media will buzz next week when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces the nominees for the 79th annual Academy Awards. But who will take note in April, when the Broad Foundation, located just blocks away on L.A.'s glittering Wilshire Boulevard, reveals the finalists for the 2007 Broad Prize for Urban Education?

We will, here at the Dallas Independent School District – because we are determined that, no later than 2010, Dallas ISD will be one of the five districts on that list. The $1 million Broad (rhymes with "road") Prize recognizes the urban school district that, of all the districts in America, has made the greatest strides toward providing every single child a superb education – exactly what we at Dallas ISD are committed to do. That commitment dates back to November 2005, when the board of trustees joined me in defining that ambitious goal.

We are not alone in that commitment. A remarkable coalition of 65 leaders from throughout Dallas has come together as the Dallas Achieves Commission to help us transform Dallas ISD using successful districts such as the Broad Prize finalists as models. Today, we will publicly unveil a new catchphrase to describe the transformation process: "The Road to Broad."

A rhyming slogan is nice, but it won't get the job done. Dallas ISD is blessed to have the talents of thousands of dedicated educators. Our students are bright and ambitious. Their families want them to achieve their dreams. Voters have given us the resources to build first-class facilities. But still too many children fail to graduate or, if they graduate, fail to have the skills they need to succeed in college or at a good job.

That can mean only one thing: In some critical ways, the system itself is broken. So Dallas ISD has done what major corporations that are in trouble do – with the help of generous donors to Dallas Achieves, we have partnered with some of the nation's most respected strategic consultants, including The Boston Consulting Group and the Public Strategies Group. They are analyzing every aspect of our operation, using best practices and data-driven research to form the roadmap for transformation.

Already, based on the consultants' research, we are implementing reforms to central office operations that should save us as much as $20 million a year. In April, the consultant team will present Phase II of their recommendations to the Dallas Achieves Commission and then to me and the trustees.

Those recommendations will enshrine a new academic rigor – raising benchmarks to the level required to equip every student for college and a career (for instance, making "commended" rather than "passing" performance on the TAKS the baseline measure of college readiness). Teachers will be supported to ensure that students are meeting the tougher benchmarks, and principals will be accountable for making sure their teachers have the skills and the resources to do so.

Central administration will be accountable for serving the schools (rather than the other way around) and for putting the money where it will produce academic gains. Engaged parents and the larger community will be called on to participate, supporting and challenging all of us along the way.

If you don't think we're serious, consider the assessment of the National Center for Educational Accountability, which reviewed Dallas ISD's curriculum and proposed significant changes a year ago. When they came back recently to assess our progress, they said they had never seen a district accomplish so much so quickly.

Publicly declaring that we are on the Road to Broad carries a risk. The trustees and I are willing to take that risk because we believe in our students, our families, our teachers, our administrators and you – the people of Dallas. We do not intend to fail.

Dr. Michael Hinojosa is general superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District. His e-mail address is suptresponse@dallasisd.org.

A great memo concerning your involvement...

2007-02-19T12:48:00.000-06:00

The following includes important dates to the Parents of Lee and a blueprint of the important issues facing us.

“Parents of Lee” areas of interest

Opportunities through DISD
• Dual Language Program
• Expanded Pre-K

• 2 Phases
o Logistics meeting Feb 26 or March 6 (waiting for confirmation from Dual Lang. & Early Childhood reps)
• Attendees
• Area 3 Superintendent Mr. Castro
• Principal Zapata
• DISD Dual Language representatives
• DISD Early Childhood representatives
• GWRA Early Childhood representative, Laura Legg
• General Purpose
• Learn about general aspects of programs
• Learn about logistics of implementation and requirements
• Learn about process going forward
o Town Hall meeting date to be set with Dual Lang., Early Childhood & Principal Zapata through Castro’s office

Kindergarten Round Up
• Goal is to increase awareness of Lee and increase student population (above current 40% capacity)

• 2 Key dates
o CiCi’s Pizza Lee benefit night, Wed. March 7
• General Purpose
• Introduction opportunity between existing Parents of Lee and GWRA Early Childhood group
• Provide opportunity to get to know one another and find common ground on goals for general life at Lee
• Support Lee’s fundraising set up through CiCi’s pizza
• Solicit willing volunteers to get involved with Round-up event

o Round-up, Friday, March 23 6:00 – verify date and time with Ms. Zapata
• General Purpose
• Educate potential future Lee parents about the school and future
• Provide a means to meet Pre-k and Kinder teachers and see their classroom
• Provide a means to show various extra curricular opportunities available to students

75th Anniversary Celebration
• Week of May 14-18 put on by Robert E. Lee celebration committee
• Parents of Lee can offer help in the form of volunteers, suggestions and publicity.

To the Parents of Lee,

2007-02-17T08:54:00.000-06:00

I wanted to let you all know that I had a really positive meeting with Principal Zapata today. One of the things that I got from her is that she would like to keep communication lines open and clear. She is looking for me to be her main point of contact for our "Parents of Lee" group in order to avoid miscommunication and overwhelming calls. Please feel free to let me know anything that you would like passed on to her. I will do my best to attend the SBDM meetings. The following is what I proposed to her and I invite you all to any and all meetings and events. We have made a lot of progress and have a lot of work to go to see some real improvements happen. Principal Zapata was very encouraging, particularly for the expanded Pre-K program! She had actually asked to implement this previously. I guess the stars are all aligning for us to work together and make it happen. I think many of you will be very excited to hear the details as they are revealed to us all.

All events are open to all, so if you know of anyone who is interested in attending, please pass the word on! We are working hard to set a town hall meeting that will be the ideal setting for us all to learn more and have a chance to have our voices heard. I will announce meeting time as soon as I am able to get it! -Laura

A great meeting at Ozona

2007-02-09T07:09:00.000-06:00

What a wonderful night last night for Robert E. Lee Elementary. There is so much energy and involvement that is building towards our goal of transforming our school. Thank you to all the parents who came out to Ozona for our first Parents of Lee get-together/hoedown.

We will begin working this weekend on building a full website which we hope will be a one stop shop for all info regarding our school and our efforts. Please, if you know of any other parents in our Lee attendance zone with kids of elementary school age, have them get on our emailing list. Email info to parentsoflee@gmail.com. You can make a difference!

The Ball is Rolling for R.E. Lee!!!!

2007-02-04T10:23:00.000-06:00

Please join us at 7:00PM this Thursday, Feb 8th, at Ozona Restaurant for a casual meet and greet/ brainstorming session. We’ll talk about:

the current state of affairs
what we expect out of a neighborhood school
what we can do to help
what we get from the district

You can help by distributing flyers and helping to spread the word to your neighbors. There is a lot of great momentum starting and I hope you will be a part of it!

Become a volunteer at Lee

2007-02-03T18:10:00.000-06:00

Voluteers can help in many ways. The kids need YOU to help them have a great and rewarding school life. The first step is... Parent volunteers should complete a Volunteer Application, and all new volunteers must also participate in an orientation. DISD ensures safety by performing a criminal records check.

DISD Parent Resource Center
A great website for DISD parents

Volunteers can …

* Work with students at and away from school
* Become tutors or mentors
* Serve as readers, listeners or speakers
* Help in all areas of a school building, particularly in the lunchroom and library
* Be “Principal for a Day”
* Help a specific student, teacher, administrator, or the school in general
* Sponsor events, activities or programs
* Serve as advisory committee members

Volunteers can …

* Chaperone a field trip
* Create a telephone network to communicate with parents
* Design displays and bulletin boards
* Prepare refreshments for students and teachers
* Donate materials, supplies, in-kind services, or motivational incentives for teachers and students
* Serve as advocates for students, teachers and public education
* Share professional development sessions with teachers and administrators
* Facilitate information dissemination where they work or within organizations that they belong to

Volunteers can ...

* Help build students’ self-esteem and self-confidence
* Give students extra chances for success
* Inspire enthusiasm for and encourage academic pursuits
* Give students instant feedback
* Add another adult friend to a student’s experience
* Increase a student’s knowledge about the world
* Introduce volunteerism to our youth
* Establish school/community/business links for quality education

Helpful Links

2007-02-02T21:49:00.000-06:00

You live in our neighborhood, and you want to get involved. However, there are so many groups that you have a hard time figuring out where to start.

First determine which neighborhood association you are in, and join!

Lower Greenville Neighborhood Association- Borders are Greenville to Skillman, Mockingbird to Ross
Greenland Hills Neighborhood Association Borders Central Expressway to Greenville, and Longview to Vanderbilt.
Belmont Neighborhood Association- Borders Greenville to Skillman, and Belmont to Ross
Vickery Place Neighborhood Association Borders Henderson (Central) to Greenville, and Goodwin to Belmont
Lowest Greenville West Neighborhood Association
Lakewood Heights Neighborhood Association Borders are Skillman to Abrams, and Monticello to Richmond

Next, please join the school groups.

If you have children ages 0-6 years, plesae join...

Lower Greenville Early Childhood PTA- Serving Stonewall and Lee Elementary Schools

If you have children of elementary age, please join...

Stonewall PTA- official PTA of Stonewall Joackson
Lee PTA- Official PTA of Robert E. Lee Elementary
Parents of Lee- Organization for children who will go to Lee, or currently go to Lee

Additional groups

Conservation districts are inlaid within certain neighborhood associations.
Belmont Addition Conservation District- Borders Greenville to Skillman Llano to Belmont

Parks, and Whiterock Lake

Friends of Teitze Park- Organazation to help our neighborhood park
Friends of Whiterock Lake

We have collected a wealth of informative links. Please check out...
Official Robert E. Lee Webpage- From DISD
PDF Stonewall/Lee/Lakewood Attendance Zone- Familiarize yourself with the boundaries
Greater Whiterock Area PTA- Our PTA for Stonewall and Lee
Great Schools' Lee page- Excellent info on our school
Official Site of DISD- A wealth of info Just for Kids Lee Page
Friends of Tietze Park Neighborhood organization
Lakewood Early Childhood PTA- A model of a neighborhood school organization.

This is a 4/14/1997 shapshot of what Lee used to offer (10 years ago) to its students and community. It is startling compared to the tiny list on the official Lee website today.
Census data- A New Census will be taken in 2010.
AEIS Report for Lee- Detailed info on our schools performance

Important email contacts:

Tom Luce is a the former US Assistant Secretary of Education and a local hero who started a tremendous website offering real solutions and comparisons to improve schools. just4kids.org
Jack Lowe Jr is the DISD Board President and our trustee for District 2.
Emilio Castro is our Area 3 superintendant.
Alicia Zapata is our principal.
Angela Hunt is our City Councilwoman. This is her website.

Lee is changing

2007-01-14T00:37:00.000-06:00

Robert E. Lee is our neighboorhood school. For quite some time, the standard line issued to parents moving into our neighborhood has been "it's a great neighborhood, but you can't use Lee." We are changing that. There is no reason that Lee cannot turn into the school that Stonewall Jackson is, and that Lakewood Elementary is becoming. It takes involvement, and that is what this website intends to foster and facilitate.

There has been talk for couple of years about rezoning Stonewall and sending some of its kids to Lee. Stonewall parents have fought any rezoning, and rightly so. Lee must become a place that parents want to send their kids. How will this happen? Through our collective effort.

We do not want to diminish any work that has gone on at Lee in the past. But, how can we expect the committed staff at Lee to create a great neighborhood school without the support of the neighborhood?

Lee is on the brink of something special. The turnaround has begun.

The factors that will make Lee exeptional.
1) The commitment of parents currently on the sidelines in a wait and see attitude.
2) The recasting of Lee as a competitive school to give us needed students and involved parents.
3) Principal and staff engaging in hard, proactive work with our support.
4) The beautification of the Lee campus.

According to the DISD, Stonewall is currently at 110% to 124% capacity. Lee is at 40% capacity. Making the hard decision of boundary change is pro-active, but may not be necessary. It would increase the pool of students and involved parents from our neighborhood and will encourage current in-zone parents to join in the ascension. However, we must get the school right first or simultaneously. We should become involved with our School Board Trustee Jack Lowe and our Area Superintendent Emilio Castro to determine the best direction of Lee's future.

Furthermore, block captains should be designated to canvas their respective block gathering data on how many children 11 years and younger are in residence and where those children go to school, or are intended to go to school. We should pay particular attention to the parents of children under five in order to recruit healthy kindergarten classes of neighborhood children.

We should prepare literature to furnish to prospective parents, telling them what our school is doing for us and what we are doing for our school. Parents need something in hand to sell them on their school.

We must volunteer at Lee: to teach, to read, to beautify.

Superintendent Hinojosa is setting a high bar and calling for increased accountability of our principals. What do we and Lee need to do in order to make our neighborhood school the school of choice?

D Magazine article

2005-12-01T01:53:00.000-06:00

Many of us remember the D magazie article from December 2005 that spoke of asbestos in our school. In the interest of creating a repository of history, we have included the article here.

The DISD Asbestos Coverup

How public school officials lied about the dangers of asbestos in classrooms and may have risked the lives of its students and employees—and could still escape charges.

By by J.D. Sparks

Robert E. Lee Elementary, near the M Streets area of Dallas, is an old school. The plain, two-story stone building looks like it was built during the Depression, which it was. Lee was recently expanded, but the original 1931 building alone has more than 120 windows and 2,000 panes of glass on its exterior, give or take. About 450 kids attend the school.

Kids and glass and old buildings being what they are, sometimes those windows need replacing, and one day in February, that’s what brought Danny Mooneyham to Robert E. Lee. The burly 60-year-old is one of seven workers in the Dallas Independent School District’s glass shop. The men are called glazers. They work full-time to care for the hundreds of thousands of windows in the district’s 219 schools and other facilities.

Mooneyham has been a glazer for DISD for 17 years. He loves his job—and not just because it pays nearly $20 an hour and offers good security. Truth be told, he likes the kids. When they see him coming, with his cool wraparound sunglasses and tools, they gather around him. Especially the boys. They watch intently as he removes broken glass panes, then uses a chisel and hammer to bang out old, brittle window putty. Sometimes he uses a loud, electric grinder to get the stubborn stuff out. Mooneyham’s deep, gravely voice and tough-guy demeanor don’t scare the kids. He remembers one girl who ran up and patted his stomach, saying, “Hey, mister, you’ve got a big belly!” Even when he tells the kids to keep back, they close ranks on him, ask him questions, offer to help. Sometimes they scoop up the scraps, chunks of putty, and take them to the trash can.

That day in February, Mooneyham and his partner, Byron “Bubba” McMullen, who has worked as a DISD glazer for two and a half years, headed for the second floor at Lee to fix a broken window. It was a simple task. Remove the glass, chip out the old putty, put in a fresh pane, recaulk it. As they set up to start work, a contractor hired by the district to renovate the school happened by and asked a question that didn’t make sense to Mooneyham or McMullen. The contractor wanted to know if the men were licensed. Licensed? You don’t have to be licensed to repair windows.

That’s how it all started, with an innocent question from an outside contract worker. He told the two DISD workers something that made them question their bosses and eventually blow the whistle on them: the contractor said that the men needed to be licensed to knock out the putty because it was “hot.” It contained asbestos.

Neither Mooneyham nor McMullen had ever heard about asbestos in the putty. If it were true, if the putty were even 1 percent asbestos, knocking it out with a chisel while kids were around would be very much against the law. So they had the school’s principal write on their work order why they were leaving the job undone, and they returned to the shop. There they asked their supervisor, Jim Underwood, if the contractor knew what he was talking about. Did the putty contain asbestos?

“He acted like he didn’t know nothing about it,” Mooneyham says.

Underwood told them he’d look into the matter and get back to them. In the meantime, he told them to keep working. Which they did.

THE WHISTLEBLOWER: Bubba McMullen had questions about the putty. When his bosses couldn’t answer them, he called the EPA.
A week later, on a Wednesday, Underwood seemed to fulfill his promise. The district’s environmental and maintenance supervisors came to speak with the glazers about the window putty. The work crew, dressed in light blue knit polo shirts and jeans, huddled their small wooden school chairs around a table as their bosses—Underwood; Joe Williams, the coordinator for the district’s Emergency Response Team; Daryl Daniels, asbestos abatement field supervisor; and Stoney Crump, head of Environmental Services—tried to quell their fears. But the supervisors started the meeting by saying it had to be short, because they had somewhere else to be. And they didn’t offer much in the way of solid information.

“Stoney Crump told us that the EPA considered it a gray area, that it wouldn’t hurt us,” McMullen says. “He said, ‘You can go downtown and stand on a corner and breathe as much asbestos from the brake dust.’”

It was McMullen—insistent but soft-spoken—who asked the most questions. Was the putty at Lee Elementary hot? Were there other schools that were hot? If they breathed the stuff, would they get sick? The supervisors didn’t have answers, and they grew more impatient with each question. Finally, Crump and the other supervisors said they would come back to the glass shop on Friday with more information. McMullen asked what the glazers should do in the meantime.

“Joe Williams told us to go ahead and chip the putty,” McMullen says. “He said, ‘I’m your boss, and if you need someone to tell you to chip the putty, then chip the putty.’ He said we could sue anybody we want to because he’s retiring in a few months anyhow.”

The next day, McMullen and other glazers were sent to South Oak Cliff High School to replace some 30 windows, a large job. Protected by little more than gloves and safety glasses, the crew did as they were told. They broke out the putty with hammers and screwdrivers. Where it stuck, they used grinders, turning the old putty into a fine powder that drifted through the air. In one of the classrooms, while the men worked, students were there, trying to pay attention to their lessons.

And while he worked, McMullen couldn’t stop thinking about the meeting with his bosses and how they never really answered his questions. So that day, he called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ask how old putty should be handled and what this so-called “gray area” was that Crump had mentioned. He wanted to be ready for the meeting on Friday, when the supervisors said they would come back with answers about how to proceed. But he never got the chance. The meeting was canceled with no explanation. That Friday morning, McMullen, Mooneyham, and the others simply received their work orders.

And the following week, the crew was sent out to repair some 60 auditorium windows at W.H. Atwell Middle School. Another big job. And still there was no word from supervisors about rescheduling the meeting. So the workers in DISD’s glass shop started doing their own research on asbestos and sharing it with each other.

Today, sitting at a picnic table outside the Samuell Grand Recreation Center, Mooneyham and McMullen talk about their self-guided asbestos education. A chill October wind blows leaves at their feet. Mooneyham chews nervously on a toothpick.

“I never had no inkling that putty had asbestos in it,” Mooneyham says. “Nobody ever said anything about it. I never thought it could get in lungs and not get out. I thought the body would get rid of it. If they’d a told me the stuff I was messing with has asbestos in it, I would have told them, ‘No sir! I don’t want the job.’”

But more than his years of breathing pulverized putty, Mooneyham says there’s one thing he can’t get over: the children who may have been exposed to asbestos because of him. “What bothers me more than anything is I done this around little kids, 4- and 5-year-olds,” he says. “They’re eating lunch, and here I am chipping it out, and it’s settling on their food.”
Both men say they are worried about losing their jobs for talking with D Magazine. But there’s more at stake than their livelihood. There’s the well-being of the district’s 160,000 students and 20,000 employees.

“Asbestosis, it’s like getting AIDS, only it takes a lot longer,” McMullen says. “But you know the outcome. You know eventually it’s gonna kill you.”

The guilt outweighed the fear of district retaliation for blowing the whistle. Just two months after first calling the EPA, McMullen agreed to help with an investigation into whether DISD knowingly broke the law by sending unlicensed workers to remediate asbestos-filled putty, sometimes with children present. Investigators found twice the allowed “safe” levels of asbestos. And McMullen wore a wire and went to the office of the district’s head of Environmental Services, Stoney Crump, to confront him. What Crump said in that taped conversation is troubling. But more troubling is the distinct possibility that the district will emerge from the investigation unscathed and unrepentant, its students, parents, and teachers left in the dark about all that dust around them.

THE MAGIC, FLAME-RETARDANT BUILDING MATERIAL
The word is Greek, meaning “inextinguishable.” Asbestos describes a group of metamorphic minerals that have been mined for thousands of years. Historically, asbestos was used in lamp wicks. The ancient Egyptians used asbestos in burial cloths. Legend has it that Charlemagne had a magic tablecloth interwoven with asbestos fibers. To clean it, he threw the tablecloth into a fire, where the crumbs were burned but the cloth wasn’t.

Asbestos is not dangerous when it is bound with other materials and left undisturbed. But when it is crumbled, pulverized, or in some way disturbed so that it becomes airborne, the microscopic fibers—1,200 times thinner than a strand of hair—can hang in the air for days. When inhaled, the fibers can lead to lung cancer, asbestosis, and mesothelioma. With asbestosis, fibers become trapped in the lung tissue, which leads to severe scarring as the body sends acid to try to break down the fibers. The result is a persistent and worsening cough with sputum, chronic shortness of breath, and lung or heart failure. Mesothelioma is a cancer that attacks the outer lining of the lungs and chest cavity, as well as the abdominal wall. Tumors grow in the membranes around the chest and stomach and spread to other organs, filling the chest with fluid, making it painful to breathe. Most people die within a year of diagnosis. In the United States alone, one estimate puts the annual number of asbestos-related deaths at 10,000.

Of the different types of asbestos, chrysotile, also called “white asbestos,” was the most commonly used in building materials in the United States, owing to its abundance and malleable fibers. More than 90 percent of all asbestos found in buildings is white asbestos.

Through the EPA, the federal government began to regulate the use of asbestos in 1973, not long after medical science proved a direct relationship between asbestos exposure and lung disease (though as early as 1898 the Chief Inspector of Factories of the United Kingdom told Parliament in his annual report about the “evil effects of asbestos dust”). The EPA included asbestos in its list of toxic air pollutants called the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP).

It didn’t take long for concerned parents and educators to realize that schools everywhere were positively filled from floor to ceiling with asbestos. In 1986, Congress passed the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA). The goal of the act was to minimize students’ risk of asbestos exposure by requiring districts and contractors to do the following: test the school for asbestos-containing material and maintain an asbestos management plan that shows where the material is in each school and how its dangers are to be controlled; make sure all schools have a copy of the plan specific to the individual campus; require reinspection of campuses every three years; and, significantly, notify parents and teachers each year about the school’s asbestos management plan and any abatement actions taken or planned on campus.

At first blush, McMullen says, a little putty from one window might not seem like a big deal, nothing worth notifying parents and teachers about. But then you do the math.

DISD, with its 217 schools, is the 12th-largest school district in the nation, with about 120 of its schools constructed before 1960, when builders were packing asbestos into just about everything—sheetrock taping, roofing tars, shingles, plasters, ceiling tiles. And, yes, window putty.

An average window that runs 17 by 30 inches might be held in place by up to a half pound of putty. A team of glazers might replace an average of 15 windows a day, which means 1,950 pounds of window putty per year. And the glass shop has seven full-time glazers.

When they hammer and grind the putty out, the powder blows in and out of the unsealed rooms, settling everywhere. “I’ve seen dust so thick before that you could write your name on a desk or the floor,” Mooneyham says. “It’ll blow up your nose and get in your mouth, in your shirt. I find it in my pockets.” Workers trudge through it, carrying it through the room and into the halls.

Another glazer, who didn’t want his name used, says, “After work, I’ll strip down, and putty will fall out of my underwear, along with some glass.”

Mooneyham says the district wasn’t providing him or McMullen with a respirator or protective clothing. They got a broom, a dustpan, and a 5-gallon bucket for cleanup. They swept it up and put it in dumpsters on campus or in the little trash cans in the classrooms.

McMullen calls himself a “country boy” and hasn’t yet seen a doctor to learn if he’s been exposed to asbestos. The substance shows up in mucous, urine, or fecal samples, although it can take years before the onset of any illness. McMullen says he’s been too tired, too busy to take the time away from work to see a doctor.

“Sure I’m worried,” he says slowly. “I’m fixin’ to be a grandfather. I want to take my grandbaby fishing. I don’t want to be sick.” And he says he doesn’t want to end up like his friend Fred Korn.

Korn is 72 years old and worked as a glazer for the district for 18 years. He has a wheezy, wet voice. His breathing is heavy, labored. He had to retire. Doctor’s orders.

He recalls scraping putty from outside the buildings, while the children were inside. “When they come up with the smoking ordinance, you couldn’t smoke because the wind would blow it in there,” Korn says. “If smoke could get in, I guess anything else could, too.”

About a year before retiring, Korn noticed he was struggling to catch his breath when he exerted himself. Sometimes he’d feel lightheaded. He chalked it up to his age. Gradually, though, it worsened until it became hard for him to do the simple stuff, like swinging a hammer or just walking. One day, he couldn’t even make it to his truck. He lost his breath and had to stop every few steps. And at night he would be jolted awake, feeling a hot, smothering sensation.

“I woke up and had to stand under the air conditioner to get cool air in me,” he says.

He was hospitalized at Medical City in Mesquite for a week. His doctor, Pedro Zevallos, diagnosed him with asbestosis in addition to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a progressive lung disease that the American Lung Association says is caused by long-term exposure to toxic substances. Korn did smoke, but he says he quit almost a decade ago.

“I sleep with oxygen, with a tube in my nose,” Korn says. “I worked as a glazer all my life. We’ve seen [training] films on asbestos, but DISD never showed us a film of it being in the putty.”

BLOWING THE WHISTLE
When Byron McMullen called the EPA that day in February after replacing dozens of windows at South Oak Cliff High School, he’d generated enough putty dust that it looked like he’d been rolled in flour. He just wanted to know: if asbestos was in the putty, should he be scraping it?

According to EPA reports obtained by D through the Freedom of Information Act, that call to the Dallas office of the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division led to a series of interviews with McMullen and others. The agency launched a probe into the school district’s management of asbestos. And it enlisted asbestos investigators with the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) to help determine whether and what regulations had been violated.

State asbestos investigator Frank Rodriguez would not speak to D, citing an ongoing case. But the notes in his report, obtained through the Open Records Act, tell a disturbing story. In mid-March, acting on a tip, he paid an unannounced visit to George W. Truett Elementary, in East Dallas. There he found McMullen and Mooneyham replacing a window in room number 118, a first-grade classroom. Rodriguez warned the workers that if the putty contained asbestos and they knew about it, they each could be fined up to $10,000. He collected samples from the room and from a bucket of old putty that the men said had come from another school. That afternoon, Rodriguez called Stoney Crump, in Environmental Services, a man who presumably would know a great deal about hazardous materials on campuses.

“I asked Mr. Crump if the asbestos management plan identified window glaze. Mr. Crump replied he did not know ... ,” Rodriguez noted in his report.

Crump said that he would find out and fax the information to Rodriguez, along with proof that glazers had met their mandatory two-hour asbestos training. However, despite repeated requests, Crump never turned over the information. Not even after Rodriguez called a week later and told him that both putty samples had been tested and were found to contain 2 percent white asbestos.

For an environmental supervisor, that number—especially given that it described samples taken from a classroom where children are present—should have pricked up his ears. Any material with an asbestos content greater than 1 percent is considered hazardous under state and federal laws. The EPA promptly forwarded the samples to their Denver lab for further testing.

But Truett was the first of three schools that Rodriguez discovered had hazardous window putty. He later found that hot putty had also been chipped at Clara Oliver Elementary, in South Dallas, and Bryan Adams High School, in East Dallas. And, furthermore, Rodriguez found evidence that suggests the district lied to its glazers about the hot putty at Bryan Adams.

At Bryan Adams, glazers were told to replace the windows in classrooms 203, 123A, and 124. When Rodriguez walked through room 203, kids were in class, and workers had left behind a mess of putty dust and scrapings that were all over the tabletops and floor. In the next classroom he visited, Room 124, workers were chipping out putty and replacing windows with students still in the room. In his report, Rodriguez again noted that putty dust coated the windowsills, desks, and floor. Glazers produced an e-mail that they’d been given by their supervisors.

The e-mail had come from the lab used by the district to test for asbestos. One room at Bryan Adams, according to the lab, was in fact clean. But that room number on the e-mail had been crossed out, and someone had instead written in 123A and 124, where the work needed to be done. Rodriguez gathered samples from room 124. (Work had not yet begun in room 123A.) They came back hot.

Strangely, though, during the five-month state and federal joint investigation, as Rodriguez found hot sample after hot sample, the district started doing its own asbestos testing—and it found nothing. How to explain why DISD’s samples would be clean, if the state found “hot” putty?

Todd Wingler, an environmental engineer and spokesman for the department of health in Austin, says results will vary at a particular building depending on its age. If the sample was taken from a new wing, or a newer window, or if an old window had already been caulked over with a nontoxic silicone-based putty, then the samples would come back clean.

“Do we know Rodriguez tested the same windows that Stoney tested?” asks Daryl Daniels, the district’s field asbestos abatement supervisor.

“We never saw their results,” Crump says of the state. “We sampled the windows that were broken and on the work order. That was our procedure. If an inspector shows up, he could be getting samples from other windows.”

Essentially, Stoney Crump’s claim is that the district sent glazers to clean rooms, and the state investigator must have tested different, hot rooms. This theory, though, doesn’t explain what we know happened at Truett. Unless Rodriguez lied on his report, he tested the putty from the same room where the men were working—not to mention the putty in their bucket, which the men had scraped from another school.

DISD officials also deny that dust was left on the floors and desks, as depicted in photos taken by Rodriguez. They maintain that Rodriguez could have been in any room and, by implication, could have photographed anything. Again, though, unless Rodriguez is incompetent or dishonest, the district’s claim defies reason.

For his part, Rodriguez took issue with the district’s findings. He was quick to note in an interview with EPA agents that there was a “white, silicone material on top of the gray, caulk-type compound,” and he “suspected DISD may have only sampled the top, white layer and not the bottom, gray layer.”

When McMullen learned that the state’s tests showed that the putty at Truett contained asbestos, he was done giving the school district the benefit of the doubt. He was tired of waiting for answers. He had tried to go through the chain of command to get information.

“I feel they lied to me,” McMullen says. “They were gonna sweep it under the carpet. If the state hadn’t come out, we’d still be chipping putty.”

That’s when he agreed to wear a wire and pay a visit to Stoney Crump.

MESSING WITH THE COUGAR: At Bryan Adams, someone doctored the work order, sending workers into a “hot” room.
THE TAPED CONVERSATION THAT NEVER HAPPENED
On the morning of Monday, April 4, Bubba McMullen couldn’t choke down breakfast. He was nervous and his palms were damp. At half past 6, he put on a recording device for the EPA and drove to his supervisor’s office off Lamar Street, in the old Sears building. He kept wondering if he was doing the right thing. He parked the van, took a deep breath to clear his mind, and went in to see his boss.

After a couple of minutes of waiting, Stoney Crump came out to greet McMullen. Crump said he was “running hard already this morning” and had a staff meeting to attend shortly. He ushered McMullen into his office. It is a small, cluttered space with diplomas on the wall and piles of paperwork and books on the desk and floor. McMullen took a seat in front of the desk but Crump stood. He was restless, fidgety.

A transcript of the tape has McMullen asking simple, direct questions to which Crump provides stammering, incomplete, and sometimes contradictory answers. Then he places blame on others.

McMullen: “I was one of the ones out there at Truett when [the asbestos investigator] came in there on us ... so I was just wondering if you’d heard anything about [it] ’cause I got a bunch of windows knocked out at Truett.”

Crump: “We have to schedule a cleanup over there. What we did was took some samples, but the bond program [passed in 2002] had already taken samples ... but they didn’t make us privy to their analysis. That’s the problem I’ve had with the bond program.”

McMullen tells Crump he was threatened with a $10,000 fine and has been told that Truett’s putty was hot.

Crump says that he provided the state with sampling that shows Truett is clean. But later in the conversation, he says he’s aware of a previous report indicating that samples contained asbestos.

Crump: “Well, some of the material at Truett was hot ... and it was identified in the previous report, so I wish Mr. Underwood [the glass shop supervisor] would let us know about that school ... .”

He speculates that environmental consultants for the district don’t know about asbestos in the putty, even though putty is listed on the EPA’s web site as a possible source, and he says the matter falls outside his department’s scope.

Crump: “I would bet one out of five, maybe one out of seven even, would not consider window caulking a sample material ... . It’s just not in the list of materials to sample from the state. ... But this thing is so much of a gray area. It does not fit into our daily operation of asbestos abatement, or even disturbance of a material that may cause friability.”

McMullen asks if he should see a doctor. Crump says he has nothing to worry about.

Crump: “They’re not gonna be able to tell you anything. You’re gonna breathe a thousand fibers today driving around in the pickup ... know what I’m saying? That’s why I’m trying to explain a little more about [it] ’cause I know you guys don’t know about asbestos.”

McMullen: “I don’t have a clue.”

Crump: “But I’m telling you, if from everything, all the training I’ve had, all the medical stuff—and you can get all kinds of stuff on the Internet—exposure to asbestos ... in order for it to scar your lungs, or to be damaging to you, it’s gonna be treated as a foreign body anytime you breathe it into your body, just like dust ... fiberglass, anything like that. Your body will do a real good job of, you know, getting rid of it ... .”

He goes on to tell McMullen that not only will it not hurt him, but he’ll probably die of old age before complications from asbestos.

Crump: “You hear about these people working in grain elevators ... and there were grain in their lungs or something, and, I mean, they don’t even know that they had it there until they die, someday, and it’s old age usually. But it doesn’t affect them, and it’s not actually the killer of them, you know, so it stays in their body. But our bodies just function ... with it in there. We drink asbestos. It’s in our water, you know.”

Crump, most shockingly, then tells McMullen he’s not at risk of exposure to asbestos because only a small percentage of the putty is toxic.

Crump: “[What] you’re finding in this window caulk is 1.5 percent and 2 percent [chrysotile asbestos]. And we’ve gotten a couple samples go as high as 10 percent. But let’s say 10 percent in a sample of material ... 10 percent of it is asbestos—so then what is the chance while you’re scraping that, that actual 10 percent ... becomes airborne and you breath it?”

McMullen: “So you don’t think I should have to go get checked or nothing?”

And once more, despite the fact that asbestos exposure can be readily determined through urine or fecal samples, Crump insists that a doctor would only perform an x-ray, and nothing would show up. Then Crump slips for the second time and seems to indicate that he knew about asbestos before the incident at George Truett Elementary.

Crump: “I’m just saying, from a health standpoint, I mean, if I was a glazer and I know what I know now, if I was in your position [and] I’d been doing the same thing every day, without, you know—but we’re going up and beyond this from now, which should have been done by the district a couple years ago—not a couple years ago, [but] since day one, since we knew about asbestos.”

Crump tells McMullen that he’s not worried about the state asbestos investigator’s threats. He’s talking about Rodriguez.

Crump: “He doesn’t intimidate me. What he can do and what probably will happen out of this, the district will probably get a fine, we’ll get a violation ... .”

The conversation ends with Crump saying the district never knew about asbestos in the window putty but now that it does, the putty will be handled properly.

When it was over, McMullen walked back to his van. He shut off the recorder. He turned to Mooneyham, who had waited a half hour in the van for him, and shook his head.

“I felt he’d filled me full of bull again,” McMullen says. “He never did answer my questions. He never looked me dead in the eye.”

Today, when asked about the conversation, Crump denies ever telling McMullen that there was a “gray area” where the EPA was concerned. In fact, Crump denies ever having the conversation. It simply never happened.

DEATH BY BUREAUCRACY
Based on his inspections, Rodriguez, working for the state, recommended that glazers should have received asbestos worker training, that they should have a physical and a respirator “fit test,” and that they should be licensed in the state as abatement workers. Rodriguez concluded that DISD was out of compliance with the Texas Asbestos Health Protection Act as well as the federal Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act. He recommended the state take enforcement action against the school district.

And if it were up to the state, that’s probably what would have happened. But remember that Bubba McMullen’s first call was to the federal EPA. They were the ones who brought the state into the investigation. And while the state was testing putty samples, so were the feds. The problem: they were using two different tests.

When looking though a microscope at a material sample, a lab technician can either estimate the percentage of asbestos—or actually count the fibers, one by one. Not surprisingly, “point counting” is more time consuming and more expensive. That’s the method that federal law demands be used in order to press criminal charges.

While OSHA has deemed any exposure to asbestos harmful, the government has grounds for prosecution only if the material is at 1 percent or higher. The results of the EPA’s point-counting tests showed that the putty samples from DISD contained just under 1 percent asbestos. The EPA closed its investigation.

And that leaves the state in an awkward position. The federal government brought the state into the investigation but then threw out the state’s test results and declared the matter finished.

“As long as I’ve been doing this, we have been prosecuting without point counting,” says Todd Wingler, the environmental engineer with the state department of health. The state has always used the estimation technique of determining asbestos content. Jennifer Jaber, director of Dallas-based Quest MicroAnalytics, a lab used by state and federal agencies, says the estimation technique is valid. She says that even for a new analyst, one in training, the lab results are 90 percent accurate. “For someone experienced, it’s 100 percent,” she says confidently.

As of press time, the state department of health services has not decided if it will move forward on a case against the district.

But how hot the putty was seems beside the point. The point is the putty did have asbestos in it. The best-case scenario is that it contained less than 1 percent asbestos, and the district was simply inept in handling it. But the worst-case scenario is that the putty contained 10 percent asbestos—a figure mentioned by Crump—and it deliberately and systematically endangered the health of children and workers, then lied about it and covered up what it was doing.

To this day, it’s impossible to get a straight answer out of the district or a clear timeline that shows what it knew and when. In a phone interview in October, DISD environmental supervisors said they first learned in January or February that asbestos was in the window putty. That was when the contractor led Mooneyham and McMullen to start asking questions. According to the district, schools are regularly inspected to make sure areas with known asbestos-containing materials have not been disturbed. However, window putty had not been identified and so was not part of reinspections. Crump said he “didn’t feel that it was well-known in the industry” that asbestos was in window putty. But, again, window putty is specifically listed on the EPA web site as a potentially hazardous material.

And the February timeline doesn’t jibe with what we know about the district’s bond program, which was passed in 2002. At that time, before any remodeling was done, the district had environmental consultants collect new samples, and it discovered that window putty contained asbestos. Crump himself told McMullen that in the taped conversation. When the EPA asked Crump about those tests done in 2002, he claimed the important information essentially had gotten lost in the shuffle.

The EPA’s David Eppler received that first phone call from Bubba McMullen. Eppler called Crump on March 7 to ask about the district’s asbestos abatement program and wrote in his notes that Crump told him he had been informed of the problem and had called a meeting February 23. “[Crump] had assumed that a proper plan was in place for handling asbestos-containing materials. In the meeting, he discovered that a plan had existed some years ago, but because of staff changes and time, the plan had been forgotten, and proper procedures were not being used. Crump had called OSHA and the Texas Department of State Health Services ... to find out exactly what procedures should be put into place. EPA was the next agency he was going to contact, so my call to [him] was timely.”

So on March 7, Crump presumably had on his “to do” list: “Call EPA, find out how to deal with asbestos-filled putty.” But on April 4, while McMullen was wearing a wire, Crump said the glazers weren’t in any danger—10 percent is such a small number, we all drink the stuff anyway—and they should go on with their work.

Today, Crump says the district took “proactive” measures on April 19 to ensure school and worker safety. That’s the day, he says, the district began treating all putty as if it contains asbestos. If a window needs to be fixed, the room is sealed and asbestos abatement methods are used. Glazers were also told to watch an asbestos training video.

None of it makes sense. And none of it explains the suspicious work orders for Bryan Adams High School. “We asked Jim Underwood,” Crump says. “He couldn’t give us an answer.” DISD spokesman Donny Claxton says the district is still inquiring about the e-mail with the altered room numbers.

Because of a purported breakdown in communication, who knows how many children were exposed to asbestos or what the long-term consequences may be for their health, not to mention what might happen to those DISD employees who breathed the putty dust day in and day out? For an institution whose business is the well-being of children, it is remarkable that district officials to date have made no effort to notify parents whose children may have inhaled asbestos—not just at Robert E. Lee, George W. Truett, Clara Oliver, and Bryan Adams, but at all the schools where putty was pulverized over the years.

Sitting on that picnic bench outside the Samuell Grand Recreation Center, McMullen rubs his mustache and looks small, defeated. He sits hunched over the table. “I feel like it was all for nothing,” he says of helping with the investigation. “But that stuff is still harmful. I don’t want to lose my job.”

“Down there they don’t care about you,” Mooneyham says. “You’re just a body. A piece of meat.”

J.D. Sparks is the managing editor of Park Cities People.