Lead has historically been used in materials due to its useful properties. It prevents corrosion, kills mold and mildew, blocks radiation, blocks sound, brightens the color of paint, helps paint dry faster, and more. However, while lead is useful, it is now known to be hazardous to health.

Exposure to lead is especially harmful for children. Lead exposure in children can lead to learning disabilities, developmental delays, and many other health problems. And since school is where most children spend much of their time, we must make sure schools are not a source of lead exposure. Unfortunately, the truth is that some schools and childcare centers in the United States are unwittingly harming the children they are pledged to educate and protect.

This article summarizes a recent FACS webinar concerning lead exposure in schools. Share it with the administration at the schools you care about. Every school administrator and maintenance director should be up-to-date on the facts of this seldom-discussed topic.

Why Lead is Hazardous to Children’s Health

Lead is a toxic metal, and the ingestion of lead can lead to health issues like the following:

• Learning problems
• Decreased IQ
• Behavioral issues
• Underperformance at school
• Hearing and speech problems

There is no known safe level of lead exposure for children. And while much of the environment offers opportunities for contact with lead to occur, school should not be one of those places.

Two primary sources of lead in schools are paint and drinking water. Below are tips from FACS on how to determine whether lead hazards exist at your school and what to do about them.

Lead Hazards Arising From Paint in School

Check lead regulations and you will find many references to the “banning” of lead in paint in the United States. The city of Baltimore led the pack in the 1950s and the city of New York followed in the 60s. The federal government finally took action in 1971 by restricting the amount of lead-based paint in federally-assisted public housing, then followed up with a nationwide “ban” in 1978.

Here’s what most people don’t know, though: Lead wasn’t “banned” from paint. The regulations lowered the permissible limit but did not erase the problem. Not only is there still plenty of pre-1978 paint still in place, but many low level lead-containing paints used today still produce dust that exceeds the allowable limit required by law.

Paint can deteriorate, chip, and create lead dust even when renovation isn’t being performed. Add activities like scraping old paint to apply a new paint, and you have a situation ripe for disaster. For example, just one square foot of a surface covered with paint containing 90 ppm lead (today’s allowable limit) can contaminate over 300 square feet of the surrounding area with unacceptable levels of lead.

First step: Identify lead paint hazards in your school

The first step to controlling lead hazards from paint is to identify and assess where lead-based materials are present. This involves checking for peeling, chipping, or deteriorating paint and using tools like X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzers to detect the presence of lead. Inspectors can also collect and send paint samples to a lab for analysis.

FACS professionals are available to perform a risk assessment at your school to help evaluate conditions there and the likelihood of exposure.

Immediately begin interim controls

Before implementing permanent solutions, interim controls can help reduce exposure:

• Regular Cleaning: Use HEPA vacuum cleaners and wet cleaning methods to reduce dust
• Repair and Maintenance: Address deteriorating paint surfaces and the causes of paint deterioration, like moisture problems
• Encapsulation: Apply a special coating to seal lead-based paint

For a permanent solution, lead paint abatement involves:

• Removal: Strip or scrape lead-based paint from surfaces using the appropriate techniques to safeguard against contamination and human contact
• Enclosure: Cover lead-based paint with a solid barrier (such as drywall)
• Replacement: Remove and replace building components that contain lead-based paint

FACS professionals can visit your school to assess the situation and recommend next steps. We can also help you develop a lead awareness and abatement plan for your school.

Use properly trained and certified building contractors

Workers and supervisors performing activities that disturb lead-based paint must be properly trained, and in many cases certified, to prevent exposure. Check your state and local regulations along with the EPA RRP Program to ensure your school’s compliance.

Lead-safe work practices for the containment of lead dust include the following:

• Regulate the work area to ensure only authorized and properly trained/protected personnel enter the workspace and that anyone leaving follows set protocols.
• Contain the work area to capture lead-contaminated dust. Plastic sheeting is often employed to catch the dust for this purpose.
• Use proper tools and techniques to avoid creating lead dust or fumes. Using a torch to blister paint from a surface, for instance, creates a tremendous amount of airborne lead dust. Wet scraping minimizes dust.
• Cover all items and horizontal surfaces in the work area. Cover and seal windows and doors. Shut HVAC down in the area and cover openings.
• Make sure workers use respiratory protection and other appropriate personal protective equipment.
• Thoroughly clean the area after the work is complete.

Make sure any contractors you employ and your maintenance staff are qualified when working with lead-contaminated materials.

Lead in Drinking Water

Schools are a higher risk location for lead in drinking water issues. They are a frequent gathering place for children, have intermittent water use patterns, and may have older plumbing facilities. Lead can leach into drinking water from lead pipes, solder, and fixtures.

The EPA encourages schools and childcare centers to adopt strategies that reduce lead in drinking water. Some states have gone beyond federal recommendations to require testing for school drinking water. Be sure to get information about the current recommendations and regulations in your school’s location.

A 2018 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that more than half of K-12 schools in the United States either don’t know if they’ve ever been tested for lead or have not tested. Of those that had tested for lead in drinking water, more than one-third of schools tested found elevated levels of lead. Don’t let your school be one of those.

Here’s how the GAO framed the situation:

In our 2018 report, we found that an estimated 41% of school districts—serving 12 million students—had not tested school water for lead in 2016 or 2017. Similarly, another 16% of school districts didn’t know whether they had tested for lead at all. Of the school districts that did test for lead (43% of those we surveyed—representing some 35 million students), about 37% found elevated lead levels in their water.

Given that many schools don’t test for lead at all and the alarming fact that more than one-third of those tested found elevated levels, we can’t accurately say how many students nationwide are in danger — but we can surely say the health of too many of our students is already threatened by a toxic metal ingested at their schools.

Risk Assessment and Mitigation

A risk assessment identifies sources of lead in the plumbing system and evaluates the condition and age of plumbing materials. To reduce lead in drinking water, schools can implement several measures:

• Develop a sampling plan for testing drinking water outlets at your school
• Regularly flush pipes to reduce lead levels in stagnant water.
• Install NSF-certified filters that remove lead from drinking water.
• Replace lead pipes and plumbing components with lead-free materials.
• Install devices that treat water at the point of use.

The above measures should be followed by a professional and documented lead risk assessment at your school. Contact FACS for more information.

Regulations Concerning Lead in Schools

No federal regulation currently requires schools to test for lead. Chances are high, however, that the situation will change. Similarly, the states are adopting their own laws to address the situation. Be sure to check the regulations in your area.

• HUD Guidelines for lead-based paint: Aimed at federal housing units.
• EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule: Controls the levels of lead and copper in drinking water.
• EPA’s Renovation, Repair, and Painting (RRP) Rule: Requires contractors to follow lead-based work practices when working on pre-1978 buildings.
• California Assembly Bill 746: Lead testing required for public schools.

Schools that have tested for lead in drinking water found that most unacceptable results were caused by the fixtures themselves, not interior plumbing or incoming water. This means that much of the problem could be abated with minimum effort. The only way to know is to test.

Best Practices for Lead in Water Hazard Control

The EPA’s 3Ts for Reducing Lead in Drinking Water in Schools and Child Care Facilities manual suggests a three-step approach: Training, Testing, and Taking Action.

Training to reduce lead in school drinking water

Educate staff, students, and parents about lead hazards and safe practices. Train maintenance staff on lead-safe work practices and make sure all contractors on site are properly trained and certified to work with lead hazards.

Be sure to gather all historical information concerning lead testing, remediation actions, component replacements and such. Establish partnerships with those who can support your efforts (public water system and public health department, for example).

Yes, making sure your school is safe from lead hazards will take time and effort. There’s no way around it. The health of our children, though, is not negotiable. We are morally and legally bound to care for them.

Testing, Maintenance, and Monitoring to reduce lead hazards in schools

Ongoing maintenance and monitoring are vital to ensure that lead hazards remain under control. This includes:

• Regular inspections of lead threat areas
• Periodic testing of drinking water
• Keeping records of lead hazard management activities

This is where the training you provide maintenance staff will be especially helpful.

Taking action to reduce lead hazards in schools

We hope this information will help you and your school determine the lead risk level at your school, take any corrective action indicated, and maintain your systems to keep children and other occupants safe.

Here are some of the things you will likely face going forward:

• Water quality will become more of a hot-button issue
• Regulations will continue to tighten
• Action levels will continue to drop
• Drought will exacerbate water quality issues
• Filtered water will become the expectation
• There will be public outcry against schools that test over the acceptable limit

Controlling lead hazards in schools is crucial for ensuring the health and safety of students and staff. By understanding the sources of lead, conducting thorough risk assessments, and implementing effective mitigation measures, schools can significantly reduce lead exposure.

FACS can help at every step. The sooner you call us, the sooner we can help navigate you through the process to make sure your school is a safer environment for the children under your care.

Contact FACS by telephone: (888) 711-9998

Contact FACS online: Ask FACS