Some parents in Missouri are fighting against their children’s school district. After multiple teachers at Warren Hills Elementary in Liberty were diagnosed with breast cancer, concerns grew. While there’s no definitive evidence, many believe a cellphone tower near the school is to blame. Naturally, the parents merely want to keep their children safe.
The parents have submitted multiple requests to have their children transferred to other area schools. Each time, the requests have been denied. The school district believes that their fears are unfounded, and see no reason to move the children. So now, the parents are speaking out to bring attention to their concerns.
Mom Cory Brown spoke with The Kansas City Star about her concerns. She told the outlet she first reached out to the superintendent of the Liberty school district in 2022. She wondered whether the 120-foot cellphone tower that was placed 130 feet away from Warren Hill Elementary could be to blame for several of its teachers being diagnosed with breast cancer. The mom explained she was worried for her children’s health.
So she wrote to the district requesting that her children be transferred to a different elementary school that still feeds into the same middle school. The family detailed their concerns in their transfer request form, sharing that the tower is a “huge concern for radiation.”
“While we understand there are various reports stating the school is safe, we sincerely believe the cancer cases are too high to be normal and would prefer another school in the district for the safety of our children. They are too precious for us to risk staying,” they wrote.
A month later, their request was denied. The Browns are now pulling their kids out of Warren Hill and putting them in private school.
“It’s frustrating when you pay taxes to a district and they won’t allow you to attend a school where you feel safe,” Brown told The Kansas City Star. “Now we are having to look into private school options, and, you know, paying for education because we don’t want to go there, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
According to the outlet, six teachers at Warren Hills have been diagnosed since 2020. In fall 2024, a beloved teacher died from cancer, and yet another was diagnosed. Families are not only shaken, but worried that the district isn’t taking their concerns seriously.
“With the recent news stories I discovered over the weekend about the number of cancer cases for the teachers at Warren Hills, I do not feel comfortable sending my child to this school due the history of cancer within our family,” a different parent wrote in their transfer request.
The Browns made one of the six requests for transfer that have been denied, the outlet reported. “These have all been denied,” Dallas Ackerman, the director of communications for Liberty Public Schools said. “We are confident that Warren Hills Elementary is a safe site for students to attend school.”
While investigations and testing to the environment around the school have been conducted, answers are still inconclusive. But the Browns aren’t comfortable waiting around. “It’s sad,” Cory Brown said. “This is something we never planned to do.”
