The former superintendent of the Scranton (Pa.) School District superintendent faces criminal charges for failing to protect for failing to protect students from lead and asbestos exposure.
The Scranton Times-Tribune reports that Alexis Kirijan, 72, who led the district from 2015 to 2019, faces 38 felony counts of endangering the welfare of children and 23 misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person. Also facing charges are the district’s former chief operating officer, Jeff Brazil, and its daytime maintenance foreman, Joseph Slack.
Investigators allege that Kirijan knew that lead and asbestos in city schools could harm the district's 10,000 students, but ignored test results that called for immediate action and knowingly put children and staff at risk, according to investigators.
"Our children deserve to be safe at school. Period," says Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. "They should be safe when they take a drink of water from the fountain. They should be safe breathing the air in their classrooms. They should be safe no matter where they go to school in our commonwealth. The subjects of this investigation ... repeatedly failed to protect students when tests discovered dangerous levels of lead in school drinking water and asbestos in school buildings over the course of three years."
Brazil, 54, who worked for the district from 2012 to his resignation last year, also faces 38 felony counts of endangering the welfare of children and 23 misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person.
Slack, 57, who investigators said knew about the lead issues but failed to follow through, faces 11 counts of endangering the welfare of children and eight counts of recklessly endangering another person. Slack is on medical leave from the district.
According to a news release from Shapiro’s office, a grand jury determined that between 2016 and 2019, Kirijan and Brazil were repeatedly warned about dangerous concentrations of lead in the water and asbestos found in the walls of Scranton schools. Slack was directed to turn off affected water sources but failed to follow through.
Instead of taking steps to resolve the problem, Shapiro says, the administration held a news conference to falsely claim that the sources of water with high lead concentrations had been fixed. They also never alerted the public of the presence of asbestos in the schools.
“No principal was ever told there were lead problems in their schools,” Shapiro says.
In 2018, follow-up testing found that 28 water fountains and sinks throughout the Scranton district had met or exceeded the EPA trigger for emergency remediation.
Kirijan had promised she would inform the school board of the 2018 test results, but the grand jury said she never did. Slack similarly promised he would restrict access to water fountains and sinks that had been deemed unsafe to students.
But the grand jury concluded that he, too, failed to follow through. The 28 fountains and sinks remained operational until the new administration was alerted to the problems in 2020.
