Accountability for the "Trash" School
By Abby Roberts
June 2, 2026—Investigative journalist Georgia Gee “stumbled” her way into her 2024 article “The Trash School,” she told the audience of the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture at AIHA Connect 2026 in New Orleans. Gee, a freelancer when she wrote the story for The Intercept, is now a researcher for The New York Times. “The lede was buried deep,” she added.
In 2020, Gee had just earned her master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. But with the COVID-19 pandemic newly declared, few employers were hiring. She took a position as a research assistant on a project focused on documenting the pandemic and sent dozens of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, including to the Florida state government. One year later, she received the documents she asked for.
Combing through the records, Gee came across emails between Alachua County Public Schools and pediatric nurse Alexandria Owens. Owens was concerned about the number of children from East Gainesville—an underserved, predominantly Black area of Gainesville, Florida—who ended up in intensive care units due to asthma. She had found state records indicating that a local school, Williams Elementary, was built on soil contaminated by petroleum that had leaked from buried tanks, removed in the late ’80s or early ’90s. Owens pressed state and county officials to address the remaining contamination, but it wasn’t considered a priority.
Intrigued, Gee reached out to Owens—who was hesitant at first but eventually opened up. Gee pitched the story to an editor and secured a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. She conducted her own online research and filed more FOIA requests. She soon realized, however, she would have to visit East Gainesville herself.
On the ground, Gee began earning the trust of community members. A local businessman, Wayne Fields, drove her around East Gainesville, pointing out the homes of people who had died of various cancers, which he attributed to a former landfill located near Williams Elementary. Former Williams Elementary student DeVante Moody recalled being teased about his “trash” school, as well as that Williams students had been forbidden from playing on an adjacent field. Like many of his classmates, Moody suffered from asthma. He was hospitalized twice as a child due to collapsed lungs.
Neither Gee nor Owens had found any mention of the former landfill in their online research. But archival research backed up Fields’ and Moody’s accounts. In news articles dating to the ’50s and ’60s, East Gainesville residents voiced objections to a landfill near Williams Elementary. City officials called the site a “necessary evil” but eventually agreed to move the dump location. The contamination remained.
Gee’s research also revealed that East Gainesville was an “hot spot” for asthma, a condition Black children are more likely to suffer from compared to other demographics. She read study after study on environmental racism. But research wasn’t enough—“Investigative journalism is about accountability,” Gee said.
She looked into federal laws on school siting, only to discover none exist. EPA has released voluntary school siting guidelines, but these don’t apply to existing schools. She also reached out to school administrators and city officials but received little response. A spokesperson for Alachua County Public Schools is quoted in Gee’s article as saying Williams Elementary is safe. After the story’s publication, The Intercept mailed postcards to the local community about potential exposures to toxic chemicals. Gee’s work took her to Kenya and The New York Times, but she plans to revisit the issue of contaminated schools in future projects.
But as Gee was preparing for the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture—commemorating the journalist whose work is credited with bringing about the first food safety laws—she learned that Williams Elementary would be closed in 2028. “It only took decades,” she said.
Abby Roberts is the assistant editor for The Synergist.