Parents of Shaler Area Elementary School students on Tuesday peppered the district's superintendent with questions about the collapse of a metal air duct in the school's cafeteria that injured a dozen people.
"You're telling us we're sending our kids into a safe school," Amanda Olszewski of Etna told Superintendent Wes Shipley. "I thought we were sending our kids to a safe school two weeks ago."
Shipley tried to reassure about 150 parents and students who attended the meeting in the Shaler Area Middle School auditorium that the elementary school will be safe when students return from spring break today.
"It was an accident nobody anticipated," Shipley said. "Obviously, hindsight is 20-20, and we're learning a lot as we move along."
The cafeteria will remain closed through the remainder of the school year. It will be redesigned and reconstructed this summer, Shipley said.
Students will eat lunch in the gym, Shipley said, and guidance services will remain available as long as they are needed.
Two gymnasiums at the high school -- closed as a precaution because of a similar design -- will remain closed until they are inspected and cleared to reopen, the superintendent said.
About 300 students were eating lunch on April 3 when a 6-foot section of the round air duct fell. Seven children were taken to Children's Hospital in Lawrenceville, and two adults were transported to UPMC Passavant in McCandless. Doctors have released all of them.
Emergency medical crews treated two adults and one student at the scene.
Olszewski's son, Nickolai, was about a foot away from the duct work as it fell. Olszewski said she will not send Nickolai back to school until the district produces an inspection report.
"He's had nightmares over this," she said. "I was in a state of panic."
The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office is overseeing the investigation.
Three independent forensic engineers -- one hired by the district attorney's office, one hired by the school district and the third hired by the district's insurance company -- have surveyed the cafeteria, Shipley said.
Officials are awaiting a report on what caused the collapse.
