Students at a New Jersey elementary school will be bused to a different county until asbestos exposure prevention efforts at their home school are complete.

School district officials say students of North End Elementary School in Cedar Grove, N.J. will need to attend school at alternative locations due to an “asbestos exposure incident” discovered during construction work this past July.

Officials have secured temporary classroom space at two other schools in the region while asbestos remediation efforts are underway.

Until the remediation efforts at North End Elementary are completed, preschool and kindergarten students will be hosted at Leonard Parks School in Cedar Grove.

First through fourth grade students will be bused over three miles away to another school in Woodland Park, one county over.

The schools are scheduled to open on September 12.

At a meeting with school officials in August, parents expressed concern over the busing plan, citing concerns for the children’s safety and well-being.

Superintendent of Schools Mike Fetherman told parents that all options were thoroughly explored before settling on a final plan.

Fetherman says he believes North End Elementary will be ready to host classes by January.

Asbestos Exposure Prevention Affects School Schedule

Asbestos is a known carcinogen. It was used for a long list of industrial purposes throughout the 20th century, particularly in construction materials like insulation, floor tiles and roofing shingles.

Health problems related to asbestos were well known by the middle of the 20th century, yet regulations did not begin to significantly restrict its use until the 1970s.

North End Elementary had been scheduled for renovations to add all-new bathrooms, heating pipes and unit ventilators in every classroom.

Some asbestos remediation was already planned, given that the renovations would affect parts of the building where asbestos was known to exist.

When evidence of an additional asbestos hazard was discovered on July 18, the construction project had to be halted this past July so that testing for asbestos could be completed.

The test results revealed elevated levels of asbestos throughout the school building, according to officials.

Within days of the discovery, Fetherman and school principal Traci Dyer began searching for alternative space to host North End students and staff during school hours.

“We do not know if the students and staff will be out of North End for a few weeks or a few months,” said Fetherman during a Board of Education meeting in July. He says the asbestos exposure prevention work could take as long as eight weeks to complete.

“We recognize that this incident is a terrible blow to the progress of the North End School project,” Fetherman said.

Leasing alternative class space in addition to the cost of the asbestos exposure prevention work itself could cost the school system hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Board members say they have contacted insurance brokers seeking coverage of those expenses.

Elevated asbestos levels were also found at South End Elementary, another school in the same district. Asbestos exposure prevention cleanup at South End is expected to be complete by the time the school year starts.