October 3, 1984
Representative Don Bonker, Democrat of Washington and the main House sponsor of the legislation, published the following near-final version of the recommendations--done in question and answer format--in the Sept. 24 Congressional Record.
Schools "may be the asbestos companies of the 1980's," Daniel A. Speights, a South Carolina lawyer who has been involved in asbestos litigation, warned members of the American Association of School Administrators at a recent conference in Washington.
"The legislature asked us to delay action until they could review ith their education-oversight committee," said C. Brent Poulton, the board's executive director.
"We are facing a child-care crisis in this country," said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the fund, a national child-advocacy or-ganization based in Washington, D.C. "Young children are being left alone to care for themselves or in makeshift arrangements because their poor and working parents cannot find affordable child care."
The project, "Continuing Education in Early Development," is designed to provide information and the results of current research on child development and early-childhood education to pediatricians, nurses, social workers, school administrators, and others who work with young children and their families, according to Erna H. Fishhaut, coordinator for the center.
Townsend Harris, a selective public school that focuses on the humanities, "was special to my development as a person," Dr. Salk said in a prepared statement. "The faculty was exceptional, the students were exceptional. ... The challenge now is to recreate that whole, that something special that Townsend Harris represented."
The state attorney general's office filed suit in federal district court on Sept. 20 on behalf of the board against the Tri-County School District in Howard City. Gerald Young, assistant attorney general, said a hearing on a temporary injunction to stop the Bible sessions would be held this week.
The Arlington County, Va., school board had unanimously voted to end its endorsement of the game last year after the family filed a separate $1-million lawsuit against the principal of their son's school, where the youth had been playing the game. (See Education Week, Aug. 31, 1983.)
Schools officials should file a property-damage claim if they have incurred or expect to incur any costs for asbestos inspection, consultation, testing, relocation, abatement, or replacement, according to lawyers dealing with school claims against the company. Because Manville is a major supplier of asbestos products in all forms, the lawyers advise that claims be filed even if there is no evidence at this time that the Manville Corporation was directly involved.
Sec. 802. (a) It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or to discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meetings.
A spokesman for the organization called the increase "not meaningful."
On Sept. 20, Maryland filed the first case by a state government against asbestos manufacturers for the costs of removing asbestos from all of its public buildings except public elementary and secondary schools.
One of the primary concerns of The Attorney General's Asbestos Liability Report to the Congress--and an issue that is even more critical now--is whether school districts are running out of time to recover their costs from asbestos manufacturers.