MILWAUKEE — As investigations continue for the Milwaukee Health Department on high lead dust exposure at Milwaukee Public Schools, remediation efforts continue at Kagel, Maryland Avenue Montessori, and Trowbridge Street schools.
What’s changed though since the lead investigation began is MPS announcing Thursday that it’s relocating students from Trowbridge School to the Wisconsin Conservatory for Lifelong Learning.
As part of efforts to remediate Trowbridge’s high levels of lead dust, the school will close for an indefinite amount of time until lead dust is properly cleaned and remediated from the building.
According to Milwaukee Health Department Commissioner Michael Totoritis, the decision to close the school was based off of two factors.
“The first factor was that earlier in February when we were walking through the schools our staff did observe some unsafe lead work happening,” said Totoritis. “So a staff member was scraping paint without proper containment in the school and that was immediately addressed. The staff person stopped and made the proper corrections to stop doing that.”
The second issue Milwaukee Health Department pointed out was that lead dust was found on previously clean surfaces.
Commissioner Totoritis says that cleaning lead dust can be difficult to accomplish.
“We were able to see that on surfaces that had been made safe, repainted, and resealed that lead dust on top of those lead-safe spaces.”
Milwaukee Public Schools Interim Chief School Administration Officer Michael Harris says that the district has hired external cleaners to help clean up the dust, but says that MPS is reviewing its own cleaning protocols to properly remove lead dust.
“We’re going to revisit those previous practices, work on those so that we are prepared for MHD to come into the schools after the weekend cleaning to see if it’s safe to put kids back in the classrooms,” said Harris. “We are working with individuals who that are being trained, we’re making sure that they are following proper protocols and once they are identified, we are looking to retrain our own.”
On Friday, the Milwaukee Health Department released it’s lead risk assessment report for Maryland Avenue Montessori School.
The report revealed that out of all four schools that have been looked at for lead, Maryland Avenue was the least effected with only two classrooms showing higher levels of lead dust on the floors with 28 micrograms per square foot of lead dust. The federal standard for lead dust is less than or equal to 10 micrograms per square foot.
The lead risk assessment report for Trowbridge Street School is expected to release later next week.
