School Risks Downplayed, Report Finds

Those charged with Los Angeles schools’ safety put politics ahead of science in evaluating hazards, deleted findings considered “too scary” for the community and “sanitized” information given to outside investigators, a new inquiry has concluded.

A private detective agency hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District last year to probe allegations of abuse in the Environmental Health and Safety Branch concluded that pressure by managers caused staff to underreport hazards from asbestos, lead paint and hazardous waste handling, and dangers at potential school sites.

“LAUSD schools may be safe, but based on our investigation, the district cannot know that with any degree of certainty,” said the report released Tuesday.

One former staff member told investigators that a prior branch director forced him to remove negative comments from a report on a school. “ ‘Take this out,’ ” he said the woman told him. “ ‘This is scary.’ ”

A former environmental health specialist, asked if he was encouraged to raise health issues, replied, “Absolutely not. It would be suicidal to do that. You would be considered someone who rocks the boat.”

The report followed by only two weeks the release of an equally scathing investigation by the district’s top auditor, which accused nine high-level district employees, including the director of real estate and the former director of environmental health and safety, of failing to address hazards at the troubled Belmont Learning Complex.

As a result of the earlier inquiry, recommendations for civil and criminal charges have been forwarded to four prosecuting agencies.

By contrast the new report, by Public Interest Investigations, adds no evidence of violations that might merit prosecution but recommends structural changes to increase the authority and accountability of the environmental branch.

There must be a change from the “let’s not scare parents” approach to a policy that draws the community into discussions about school safety, the document said.

It also recommended that the district prepare a school-by-school inventory of safety issues, update it monthly and make it available in every school’s front office.

Public Interest Investigations was hired last summer to examine more than 40 allegations of abuse lodged by Hamid Arabzadeh, former director of the environmental branch, who had been fired after criticizing the district’s environmental procedures at a legislative hearing. District officials said he was fired because of deficiencies in his management style.

Public Interest did not examine whether Arabzadeh’s termination was merited. But it found little evidence that he tried to make any of his accusations before being fired.