Dear Governor Hochul:

We are the parents, teachers, staff, and neighbors of P.S. 372, the Children’s School, in Brooklyn, NY.

We ask you to take urgent action now to ensure that our school has clean indoor air that is free of the toxic chemicals, including known cancer-causing and neurodegenerative agents, that were identified in March 2024.

We are outraged that New York State agencies under your leadership have failed to safeguard the school community from documented toxic chemical threats in our indoor air for two and a half years, even though those same agencies determined that soil vapor intrusion mitigation was mandated.

As the new school year approaches, we are incredibly worried about our children’s health.

We know that our pre-K and kindergarten kids are most at risk because their classrooms are in the basement of the annex building, closest to the source of pollution. We know that all the students, faculty, and staff will be exposed to toxic pollutants. 

Toxic vapors threaten the health of our community.

According to communication from the New York State Department of Health (DOH) dated August 12, 2026 and communication from the State's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) dated June 12, 2026, the indoor air at P.S. 372 contains these and other pollutants:

• Benzene
• m,p-Xylene
• o-Xylene
• Toluene
• Methyl ethyl ketone (2-Butanone)
• Carbon tetrachloride
• 1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene
• 1,4-Dichlorobenzene
• Chloromethane (Methyl chloride)
• 1,3,5-Trimethylbenzene (Mesitylene)
• 4-Ethyltoluene
• Ethylbenzene
• Trichlorofluoromethane

The Children’s School is a wonderful community in District 15 and District 75 that is renowned for its inclusion program, its dedicated teaching and paraprofessional staff, and a close-knit parent community. We are fighting to protect our kids and our entire community from the dangers of toxic vapors emanating from the heavily polluted soil underneath the school. 

After two years of failed mitigation measures by New York State's DOH, DEC, and NYC Department of Education, Governor Hochul must take urgent action to protect the P.S. 372 community. 

Toxic contaminants from hazardous pollution underneath the school’s foundations has intruded into the school’s indoor air. These toxic vapors must be kept out. 

The Children’s School is located in Gowanus, a neighborhood that contains dozens of brownfield sites due to decades of soil and groundwater pollution from manufactured gas plants (MGPs), chemical works, and oil refineries.

We are one block from the Gowanus Canal, a federal Superfund site. Across the street from the school is Con Edison’s Third Avenue Yard Service Center at 222 1st St, a brownfield cleanup site due to decades of petroleum and hazardous material spills.

Finally, our school is itself the site of a petroleum spill from June 9, 2004 that was never cleaned up.

Records show a DEC investigation found contamination in soil and groundwater, did not identify a source for the spill, and recommended the construction of a vapor barrier to prevent migration of VOCs from soil gas into basement. This barrier was never implemented and the case was closed in 2017.

In 2024, soil vapor intrusion – toxic vapors from toxic soil and groundwater – was detected under the basement slab of the school’s annex building. 

The basement level of this building houses all our kindergarten and pre-kindergarten classes. Dozens of young children spend nearly all their school hours in these classrooms, and hundreds of other children also spend time in this annex building.

Mitigation work over the past two years has failed. We need urgent action to protect our school community.

We urge you to enforce strict compliance with the New York State mandate to restore sites to "pre-disposal conditions, to the extent feasible." (6 NYCRR (New York Codes, Rules and Regulations) PART 375-2.8 (a))

Given the health risks posed by exposure to these and other toxic chemicals, we respectfully demand that you immediately make the school free of all toxic chemicals by remediating all known toxic contamination sources directly under and immediately near the school.

The air in P.S. 372 also should be purified using high-flow Granular Activated Carbon filtration systems to safeguard the health of the school community.  GAC is documented to be able to remove a wide range of toxic chemicals.

We hold you personally accountable for fulfilling our requests. We demand immediate action without any further delay.

If you cannot protect the children, faculty and staff of P.S. 372, you do not deserve to be Governor of New York State.