School chief: We will test environment

Linda Bigos

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(CNN) -- Six students have died since December in the 2,800-student East Pennsboro Area School District in Pennsylvania. The first three students who died, in December and January, had been suffering from life-threatening illnesses. The other three who died in the last few weeks had been apparently healthy.

The school board in Enola plans to order tests to see whether these deaths share an environmental link. CNN's Paula Zahn spoke Monday with Linda Bigos, the superintendent of the school district.

ZAHN: So can you rule out any environmental link to these deaths?

BIGOS: We will have an environmental investigation. And to this point, our coroners ... have indicated that the deaths are not connected in any way. And also that there would be no environmental cause for any of the deaths -- at least any of the three deaths -- in which the coroners have been involved.

ZAHN: And you no doubt have heard what many parents are expressing. They're very concerned, in the meantime, that there is something (in the environment) that is hurting their children.

BIGOS: The parents have some concerns, as I did and the school board did. And that is why we asked the Department for Environmental Resources to come in and to conduct some preliminary tests. That is why we have met with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and have taken their recommendations, which included the review of the student records and also a fuller investigation of the environmental studies.

ZAHN: And what do you say to the parents who are obviously so troubled by this who say that there's just too much going on here for it to be a simple coincidence?

BIGOS: Oh, we certainly have been supportive of those parents; our community has been supportive of them as well.

ZAHN: You're going to be holding a school district meeting tonight (Monday). What kind of recommendations do you plan to make?

BIGOS: This meeting this evening is our typical school board meeting. We meet on a regular basis twice a month. And part of our meeting will be an update of the actions that have been taken since the last school board meeting, with regard to the student deaths and the investigations that we are holding.

And we also will hear recommendations for proposals from five environmental firms. And they will present their proposals to the board. The board will discuss those proposals, ask questions, and may take some action on one of those proposals this evening. And that would be to hire one of the firms to conduct the investigation.

ZAHN: CNN's Jeanne Meserve, who is on the scene there, just reported that initially some of these environmental tests turned up levels of lead and asbestos. But I guess the most recent tests have shown the environment free of that. But if you have one of these environmental groups that comes in and you find positive testing for any carcinogen or anything that might cause your kids to get sick, is there a backup plan to move these kids off campus?

BIGOS: Should there be any type of results that would be detrimental to the students, we of course would move them immediately. However, we have not found that that is true at all at the high school. And the tests that have been done previously were done for asbestos, for mold. And those tests have all -- remediation had been done where it was necessary, and the tests right now have been clear.