John Brannan and Meaghan McGregor spent the summer looking forward to their daughter Claudia's first day of school at Newcastle East Public School this week.
But rather than a celebration, she is yet to even start. Her brothers Josh and Lucas attended on the first day but were removed when news of the school's asbestos contamination crisis became public.
They are among several families who are keeping their children from the school until they receive copies of asbestos clearance certificates from the Department of Education.
Despite being assured by the department at meeting on Monday night that the certificates would be forthcoming, they had not been provided as of Tuesday evening.
"I think there are measures in place [to make the school safe] but I still haven't seen the documentation to say that it's clear. Moving forward that is important," Dr Brannan, a respiratory scientist said.
Dr Brannan said the realisation that his older children may have been exposed to asbestos for a number of years had been extremely difficult to deal with given his experience of treating patients with asbestos-related illnesses.
"In terms of experience with patients who have been exposed to asbestos, I have heard some terrible stories and seen a significant degree of suffering; it's been hard to put myself in that position," he said.
"I guess what this means for me now is the cloud that has hung over some of the workers that have been exposed [now] sits over the teachers and kids at the school and that has an emotional impact."
His sentiments were shared by the majority of the 200 people who attended Monday night's meeting who indicated they had experienced stress after learning that their children may have been exposed to contamination that originated from asbestos recently found during the removal of the roof of the heritage building.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell apologised to parents on Monday for how the project had been managed. In particular, she said she was dissatisfied with the conflicting information parents had received.
"I'm a parent and if I turned up at my daughter's school and was given the sort of information that you were, I would be worried," she said.
Despite the apology and assurances that the school had been completely decontaminated, the meeting left many unanswered questions.
"There were a lot of questions raised but we didn't get a tremendous amount of answers back. It was incredibly important to foster a discussion on the details but there now needs to be further work to really understand the extent of exposure prior to the building works," Dr Brannan said.
"As a result of how this project has been managed one can't help but think there may have been a risk beforehand. My concerns are that we have lost some of the history into pre-background asbestos levels. I would feel a lot calmer, a lot more relaxed if I knew those levels potentially weren't as high as I suspect they could have been because of the nature of the building, its age and the nature of the asbestos."
Ms McGregor said parents were furious about the how the issue was initially downplayed, the lack of accountability and the fact the building works would continue until the end of term one.
"Some of us were shut down when we started questioning this last year. This issue was on the minister's desk because parents were pushing back, not because of what happened last week," she said.
"The arrogance of the decision makers that they know best without the experience in these matters is gobsmacking. When we hand our children over to school we expect a duty of care not neglect.
Another parent and lawyer Kath Fielden said there was a mounting body of evidence to show parents had been deliberately misled about the scale of the contamination threat for more than a decade.
Like many parents, she faces the agonising decision about whether to register her three children on the asbestos exposure register.
"If they are registered it is likely to have life-long consequences for things like insurance and being able to work in certain industries. If they are not registered then it may limit their ability to take legal action if they get sick later in life," she said.
Ms Fielden has also requested to inspect the school's asbestos inspection register to satisfy herself that mandatory inspections occurred in high risk areas.
READ MORE:
- Asbestos bombshell dropped on Newcastle East Public School parents
- 'Catastrophe': Irreplaceable artefacts destroyed in Newcastle East Public School asbestos aftermath
- 'Trust broken': Parent's anger over Newcastle East Public School asbestos bombshell
- Education Minister and department secretary to make extraordinary visit to Newcastle East Public School on Monday
