MILWAUKEE – All floors at Golda Meir School are considered a lead dust hazard.
In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, the Milwaukee Health Department confirmed that two cases of lead poisoning in two students from Milwaukee Public Schools were tied to high lead levels at Golda Meir Public School and Albert E. Kagel Dual Language School.
At the press conference, Commissioner of the City Health Department, Dr. Michael Totoritis and Deputy Commissioner of Health, Tyler Weber released a report about the amount of lead found at Golda Meir after a lead risk assessment was completed in the past few days.
“The mean average is very high,” said Weber. “As defined by HUD and other federal standards, the average is equal or greater to a 100 micrograms per square foot. The average we found on the third floor was 1600 [micrograms per square foot] on the third floor.”
Weber says the assessment done at Golda Meir was considered the largest risk assessment done at the Milwaukee Health Department.
“MPS needs to treat every window sill and floor as a lead hazard,” said Weber. “MPS has a lot of lead paint on their bookshelves, their pipes, doors, walls…so ongoing monitoring of lead surfaces is recommended.”
According to Dr. Totoraitis, Milwaukee Public Schools has two lead assessors on staff, but says that the department should seek more help from the Department of Public Instruction and external contractors to assess more buildings within the school district for high lead levels in the school .
Dr. Totoraitis also suggests that parents of children one to three years old at MPS should be tested for lead.
“We are very confident that if we identify more children, we will track those kids down,” said Dr. Totoraitis. “We follow families up to two years or even beyond to ensure that their lead levels go down.”
In response to the city health department’s press conference, Milwaukee Public Schools Facilities Manager Sean Kane said the district was made aware of the lead issues after the first of the year & began addressing the issues immediately.
“We’re using certified people to stabilize lead painted surfaces,” said Kane. ” We’re also looking at soliciting additional certified restoration contractors to get assistance and take a look at practices and methods of cleaning.”
Kane also did not rule out that buildings with high lead could be added to the MPS’s Long Range Facilities Plan list of schools that could be shut down.
“That is a complicated decision that needs to be made, but we also need to get feedback from the general public and right now we’re going through steering committees form the regional and city-wide effort to have those conversations, but that is part of the equation. I would say yes,” said Kane.
MPS says they are working with the city department of health to get buildings clean.
In the meantime, MHD says that it plans to do more lead risk assessments at Maryland Avenue Montessori School and Trowbridge School of Great Lake Studies over the upcoming weekend.
