Reports of Radioactive Contamination Closed Their School. This PTA Is Demanding Answers

In October 2022, Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Missouri, closed after reports of radioactive contamination in the school. One month later, the Hazelwood School District sent a letter to parents. The Jana students and staff would be redistricted to five other schools across the district in a decision that devastated parents and community members.

“It decimated our community,” PTA president Ashley Bernaugh said. Bernaugh filed two separate Freedom on Information Act requests in 2018 and 2021 to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over radioactive material testing at Jana. After she received the results of those requests, she presented them to the Jana PTA and the district. “We had started that conversation. We’d asked to be part of that conversation but we were completely nixed from that conversation.”