Peeling lead paint found in 938 classrooms; and lead-laden water in 500 schools
The DOE found peeling lead paint at 486 schools built before 1985, including over 938 classrooms serving kids in 3-K, Pre-K, Kindergarten and first grade. More on this at Gothamist [with a WNYC radio sound file], Chalkbeat and NY Post.
The ramped up inspection is a result of investigative reporting by Christopher Werth of WNYC , who wrote in Gothamist earlier this summer how he had found lead paint in classrooms here and here; and a letter sent by members of Congress to the DOE as a result of his reporting.
Here is the DOE spreadsheet of the schools inspected and the results.
The DOE says they plan to remediate all these classrooms before Sept., by covering the peeling paint with a “certified primer” and painted over twice.
Yet it doesn’t appear that DOE also checked for lead dust on the floors, which can also be quite toxic, especially for young kids who sit on the rug for “circle time”, as pointed out by Werth in the WNYC interview and earlier Gothamist articles. And they haven’t checked any classrooms for kids over six, or common areas.
The Chalkbeat article also has a searchable list of the 500 schools that still have water outlets that were found to have lead levels still above the “action level” of 15 parts per billion, though the DOE claims to have “remediated” all but 15 of these outlets once again.
Which brings up the question, if they had remediated them last year, as they claimed, how effective is the process by which they address this?
The DOE should immediately inform parents at all schools with classrooms that tested positive for lead. The more research is done about lead and its effects, the more scientists realize that even children with tiny amounts of detectable lead in their blood are more likely to have academic and behavior problems. See my earlier blog post about this, as well as these two scientific studies.
Which brings up the question, if they had remediated them last year, as they claimed, how effective is the process by which they address this?
The DOE should immediately inform parents at all schools with classrooms that tested positive for lead. The more research is done about lead and its effects, the more scientists realize that even children with tiny amounts of detectable lead in their blood are more likely to have academic and behavior problems. See my earlier blog post about this, as well as these two scientific studies.
All parents should also probably have their kids tested for lead, especially if their schools are on the list but even if not. Too often children go without lead testing, as reported CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Peeling lead paint found in 938 classrooms; and lead-laden water in 500 schools
