Teachers and parents from Castle Hill High School will appear before an asbestos parliamentary inquiry today.
Castle Hill High School returned positive results for asbestos in 2016, but the NSW Department of Education declared that the school did not have asbestos. Understandably, parents, teachers and students are concerned about the potential for exposure.
Castle Hill MP Ray Williams has accused the NSW Department of Education of “severely compromising” the health of the school community by failing to reveal the results of the tests.
At the time of the results, the department acknowledged the mistake but noted that the risk was “low or negligable” in regards to the risk of exposure.
Parents of students are understandably concerned over being misled over the results, and some have considered removing their children from the school.
One parent, who spoke to ABC News explained that they have “had to go to freedom of information requests and sifting through parliament house documents to try and get any idea of what is going on at the school in terms of risks to our kids.
“So much asbestos is an accident waiting to happen, and I don’t know if there has been misses or near misses this year.
“There’s been a lot of issues this year that have not been disclosed to the parents.”