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American Morning

Interview of Linda Bigos, East Pennsboro Superintendent

Aired May 20, 2002 - 07:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We are also going to talk more now about the string of student deaths with the superintendent of East Pennsboro School. Her name is Linda Bigos.

Before we get to her, though, we wanted to put up on the screen the names of the students who have lost their lives over the past few months or so. We start out with Tiffanie Salvadia, 16. She died from ovarian cancer. Breanna Santiago, she was only five years old. She was the recipient of a double lung transplant. She died from a lung disorder. Lee Umbenhauer, 18, died from leukemia.

Now these three that we just mentioned obviously were fighting life-threatening illnesses. Now the next three apparently were all healthy up until the times of their death. Jessica Batdorf, 13, collapsed on her way to homeroom, never regained consciousness; cause of her death unknown. Chris Shamansky, 16, died from what is being called an enlarged heart. And Jim Henry, 16, died from a ruptured brain aneurysm.

And Linda Bigos, who is the superintendent of the East Pennsboro School District joins us now -- welcome. Thank you very much for being with us this morning.

LINDA BIGOS, SUPERINTENDENT, EAST PENNSBORO SCHOOL DISTRICT: Good morning. You're welcome.

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, both the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) County coroner and the Cumberland County coroner, 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 environmentally that is hurting their children. I'm going to put up on the screen now what the parents of a couple of students have said. Tracy Baumgartner (ph) said, "I think something is going on over there and someone needs to look into it." And then Denine Gathaus (ph) says, "Maybe it's not in the school but in the township. Something somewhere is causing students to get sick." You understand, Superintendent, why they are saying that, right?

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 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: We are obviously having problems with that satellite hookup. That was Superintendent Linda Bigos. We will try to get her back on line on the other -- let's try again, Superintendent Linda Bigos.

For a while there we were getting a repetitive pattern in the signal. Let me move you on to another question now that we've got you back.

You're going to be holding a school district meeting later tonight. 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: 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.

ZAHN: Superintendent Bigos, thank you for your patience, as we had to try to fix up that link there. Good luck to you tonight. We will be keeping a close eye on what you and your community decide to do to investigate this matter. Good luck.

BIGOS: Thank you, Paula -- thank you very much.

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