Vermont officials will begin testing schools for PCBs next month, according to a draft schedule of a statewide testing program released this week.
Last year, lawmakers required state officials to test for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in every school in the state — public and approved independent schools — built or renovated prior to 1980.
PCBs, a class of toxic chemicals believed to be probable carcinogens, were widely used in building materials until 1980. The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation plans to test over 300 schools in the state for the chemicals by July 2024, although state officials have asked lawmakers for a two-year delay.
“The schedule may change if the legislature extends the date to complete the testing from July 2024 to July 2026,” Patricia Coppolino, a program manager at the department, said in an email. “Otherwise there isn’t a lot of room to manipulate.”
The schedule, which state officials sent to school superintendents Monday, assigns each school a priority level by assessing a set of factors — the date they were built or renovated, whether they have upcoming construction or renovation scheduled, and whether they previously conducted any PCB remediation.
State officials also took into account whether schools operate child care programs, and how many of their students receive a free or reduced-price lunch.
“Schools that have been judged to be a higher priority for testing have been scheduled to go first,” Vermont Secretary of Education Dan French wrote to superintendents in an April 25 email.
That means that different schools in the same district or supervisory union could be tested at different times.
The schedule is divided into three-month blocks of time, with 30 to 40 schools scheduled for testing in each block.
An exception is July 2024, in which environmental officials are slated to test about 40 schools in that month alone. But Coppolino said that could change.
“We were going to wait to hear back from schools on any conflicts and then try to even out the distribution,” she said in an email.
Test results from individual schools will be released on a rolling basis. For a single school, the entire process will take about six to eight weeks, Coppolino said.
Vermont lawmakers have been on high alert about the substances since 2020, when school officials recorded elevated levels of the chemicals inside Burlington High School. That discovery forced the high school to close and left students learning in a retrofitted shopping mall.
Education officials, anxious about a potential repeat of Burlington High School’s experience, have called on lawmakers to set aside money for remediating the chemicals if they are found elsewhere. But it’s unclear if that money will materialize during this legislative session.
The Department of Environmental Conservation plans to release a final draft of the testing schedule in mid-May.
