School officials are working on removing asbestos in the ceiling at Redwood Elementary School in West Orange.

The abatement process began earlier this week and will displace several classrooms to other areas of the school to maintain the students' safety.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Anthony Cavanna assured there will be no danger to the children at the school.

"Right now the asbestos is sealed in the ceiling … in five to six days, the asbestos will be removed," Cavanna said.

He said that because a leak in the ceiling could not be found, workers will have to open up the ceiling to look for the leak — a process that will take several weeks.

The asbestos will then be located and removed. Cavanna said the whole project will take four weeks.

A meeting early Monday morning was held at the school to discuss the plan with the parents who were upset by what they said was poor communication by the district on the issue.

"My concern was that I knew nothing about anything. A note came home (last) friday, that said there would be repairs, but it had no information (about asbestos)," said one Redwood parent who did not want to be identified.

Another parent who did not want to be identified said one of her children had been displaced from his classroom for the past three weeks without her knowledge.

"My son is in the class directly affected and for three weeks he has been displaced from his classroom, carrying his books back and forth everyday," she said. "They didn't tell us about the leak."

She said she did not receive adequate notice from the school, only that "renovations" were to take place. She said parents began contacting the school to find out why their kids were coming home with their books.

"It was miscommunicated from the beginning," she said, insisting that her issue was with transparency not the asbestos leak.

"Asbestos is a situation that's unfortunate, but that's all OK, those things happen. I can't be angry with the school for that … but it was not handled forthright."

Cavanna told Patch the situation had been "rectified" Monday morning after he met with the parents and took responsibility for the lack of information.

He reiterated the students' safety was a priority and that undisturbed and contained asbestos was not damaging to students.

"In West Orange we took care of all of the major problems we had but things like in the ceiling that are encapsulated, we've been doing that as we have money to do that. But in this particular instance, there was a leak in the ceiling that we couldn't find."

The two rooms next to the boiler where the work will take place will be completely sealed off to the students and work will only be completed after school hours.

Air quality tests will be performed daily to ensure the school can safely re-open for the students every morning.

The treatment is taking place now so that the students will be able to return to their classrooms and finish out the rest of the year. If the district decided to wait until the summer, the students would be displaced for the rest of the year, Cavanna said.

[Editor's note: This story was updated Feb. 11]