(The Center Square) – Nearly a year after Milwaukee Public Schools began the work to clean lead out of its school buildings, the district says its classrooms are now lead-free.
MPS said crews finished the last of the lead remediation in the 99th and final school that had lead-based paint.
“This is an important milestone for the MPS community,” MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said. “We have asked so much of our students, families, and staff over the past 10 months as we addressed this issue with the urgency it required…because of the hard work of so many dedicated teams in our district – we can move forward with the peace of mind that our schools are safe.”
MPS had to move students or close parts of six entire school buildings because the lead contamination in those buildings was so bad. The other 90-plus schools had some lead paint, but students were allowed to continue with classes while the work unfolded.
In all, MPS says it cleaned 2,700 classrooms or common areas in those school buildings.
Cassellius had set a Dec. 31 deadline to finish the lead remediation. She said MPS is nearly two weeks ahead of schedule.
MPS’ lead problems were decades in the making. Lead-based paint has been banned in the United States since the 1970s, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that anyone flagged MPS schools. That came after Milwaukee’s health department reported that a handful of children tested positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood.
Cassellius said she has added both cleaning and maintenance crews to the MPS payroll to monitor and clean up any lead they find going forward. That includes “39 new school-based custodial positions, four new district operations managers who are in schools daily and report concerns immediately, [and] Environmental Health & Safety staff who will continually monitor lead safety by conducting regular checks.”
