MILWAUKEE — A thousand students are expected to be tested for elevated levels of lead on Saturday at Bradley Tech High School in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood.
This is part of Milwaukee Public Schools and Milwaukee Health Department’s efforts to identify anymore high cases of blood lead poisoning in MPS schools as confirmed cases have been tied to Golda Meir Lower Campus, Kagel Elementary, Maryland Avenue Montessori and Trowbridge Elementary schools.
At a press conference on Thursday, Interim Chief of School Administration for Milwaukee Public Schools Michael Harris said that medical staff from MHD and Children’s Wisconsin would be on site to help.
“If I’m not mistaken, we are looking at 14 or 15 lanes that will be open for families to go through and have their child get tested,” said Harris. “We’ll have MPS nurses, parent coordinators, Milwaukee Rec on site to support the efforts to get folks in, make them comfortable and go through the process.”
The process involves a child getting their finger pricked for blood, where blood lead levels are then tested to see if there is a 3.5 microgram per deciliter amount of lead in their body.
Vice President of Community Health for 16th Street Community Health Centers, Abby Gorecki says if there blood shows lead levels above 3.5 micrograms per deciliter, then other test will immediately begin.
“We’ll work with the parents right then and there to go get confirmatory tests,” said Gorecki. “That’s a blood draw and we would use that as an accurate measurement to confirm that there is an elevated blood lead level or if there was an error with the finger prick test. If that was the case, then parents will need to follow up with a pediatrician and some case management done by the city health department. It’s really on a case-by-case basis.”
Milwaukee Health Department Nurse Holly Nannis says beyond the schools, parents and students alike should be more aware of lead in their community, especially in a city like Milwaukee where buildings over a hundred years old have some form of lead in them.
“The one thing we want to have families take home with them is childhood lead exposure or lead exposure is in our environments,” said Nannis. “We have to have people be aware of what exposures look like, where there are potential locations of exposures so that they can remediate them and minimize contact with their children with those hazards. “
The clinic at Bradley Tech takes place on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Additional clinics will be at the 16th Street Community Health Center Chavez Clinic next Wednesday 4 to 6p.m. and at Children’s Wisconsin’s NextDoor clinic every Tuesday and Thursday 1 to 4 p.m. starting March 20th.
On Thursday night, MPS released the names of the 10 additional schools that the Health Department is looking at to further investigate lead in district buildings including:
- Fernwood Montessori
- Starms Early Childhood
- Hopkins Lloyd
- Brown Street Academy
- Doerfler Elementary
- Longfellow Elementary
- Westside Academy
- Auer Avenue School
- Franklin Elementary
- LaFollette School
These schools are being looked over visually to see any kind of deterioration in walls and piping that could emit lead dust to places such as floors, window sills, doors and other hard to reach areas.
Fernwood Montessori, Starms Early Childhood Center and LaFollette School will be temporarily closed on March 17th for remediation and testing for lead dust samples.
Students at Fernwood Montessori will temporarily move to Andrew S. Douglas Middle School while students at Starms Early Childhood Center will temporarily move to Starms Discovery Learning Center and students at LaFollette School will relocated to the Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning.
One breakthrough throughout this process though is that MPS announced earlier this week that students and faculty would be able to return to Trowbridge elementary on Friday after they spent more than two weeks at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning.
Harris says the goal overall is to address one building at a time as remediation efforts continue at MPS schools to clean for lead dust.
