Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott admitted last night that Department of Education officials should not have waited almost six months before alerting parents about a toxin at a Bronx school.
“We take responsibility and I take responsibility,” he said during a meeting with parents about dangerous levels of trichloroethylene, a potential carcinogen, discovered in January at PS 51 in Norwood.
The DOE got the results in February and told parents in July.
The alarming find — soil samples under the building showed levels as high as 10,000 times state guidelines — occurred during the brief tenure of embattled ex-chancellor Cathie Black.
The school opened in 1992 and sits on a former manufacturing plant. The DOE is negotiating to relocate the school to a nearby building.
Cynthia Rodriguez said her 7-year-old daughter, Erin Arroyo, who has attended the school since kindergarten, suffers from headaches and dizziness.
“They even referred her to have her heart checked out. I’m a worried parent,” she said.