thank you. Thank you so much for the information.
>> Thank you. It was my pleasure.
quickly approaches, we have an update on lead
contamination in Milwaukee Public Schools. Here and
now, reporter Steven Potter has this report.
>> So they'll come back before school starts and
make sure that they get every single spot. And it's
just a constant upkeep. >> Brenda Cassellius is the
superintendent of the system. Since her first day
in the job, less than six months ago, she's faced the
manage a significant health risk facing the school
district's more than 60,000 students. The problem is
lead contamination, specifically chipping lead
paint and lead dust, and the extent of the problem is
very widespread. >> So we have to assume that
the schools built prior to 1950, when there was the
understanding that there's lead in paint happened, that
those schools have lead in them.
>> Cassellius says the Milwaukee public Schools
were using lead paint until it was federally outlawed in
1978. That means a majority of schools are considered
contaminated. >> That's about 106 schools.
>> The lead crisis began when a student at the Golda
Meir Elementary School tested positive for lead
poisoning back in January. That's when the City of
Milwaukee Health Department got involved.
>> We're very concerned about developmental delays
and cognitive regulation. So if a child has significant
lead poisoning, it can cause behavioral issues and make
their more impulsive, and it can cause permanent brain
damage that has significant long term effects. So this
is why lead is regulated at the federal level and why
we're taking this so seriously here in the city.
>> Early last spring, after another NPS child tested
positive for lead poisoning, the health department
ordered the school district to come up with a lead
abatement and management plan to address the most
contaminated schools and the student populations most in
danger of lead poisoning. >> The district was required
to produce a lead plan to ensure that we could get
back to compliance with the lead standards that are set
forth for any school across the state of Wisconsin.
>> Around 600 students have been tested, Totoraitis
says, and the testing of students continues.
>> This is an ongoing effort that's really going to span
into the coming years to ensure that we keep eyes on
the students at Mnps and frankly, across the city.
>> Part of the school district's new plan,
released last April, included temporarily closing
several schools and relocating the students to
another school while cleaning and repainting was
done over the spring and now through summer. School
officials say they've made progress, but still have
dozens more schools to clear.
>> We're hoping that we'll have our schools finished
and tested by the September 2nd school start date.
>> It's a fluid process, so as we do our screenings and
ensuring that the schools are ready to reopen, we've
uncovered, hey, you actually need to reclean this room or
you need to restabilize this surface and that adds more
time. >> Despite all of their
efforts so far, NPS officials say that there's
still a lot more work to do with cleaning and painting
the schools to get them to a standard that's safe for
students. And once the schools are stabilized,
additional maintenance and needed to keep them that
way. going to cost somewhere
around $25 million to do. And then there's the ongoing
costs. So we put an additional $16 million of
ongoing investments within our facilities department to
add custodial support, to add painters, to add
plasters, to add lead abatement. Or lead
inspectors to the team to make sure that we're keeping
up with our lead action plan.
NPS is having to cover alone.
>> We have not received any help from the state.
>> Still, some are concerned that not enough is being
done fast enough or thoroughly enough to keep
their kids safe. And one group wants more
transparency about what's being done. Shannon Pahlicek
is a parent with Lead Safe Schools Milwaukee.
>> It shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
It's an issue of aging. Buildings is a big part of
it, but it's also an issue of deferred maintenance,
which is a multifaceted problem. The
administration's job is to know what's going on in the
schools. And so the idea that there was, you know, as
much degradation in the paint as there was and as
much dust in the schools as there was, I think that's
that's disheartening. No child deserves to be unsafe
on day one. So they've got to do what they've got to
do. But the faster the better. But you want it done
right. Cassellius says she
understands the parents concerns.
>> We're working as fast as we can with all urgency and
no expense spared. So I've told my team, if you need
additional painters, we will buy them. If you need
additional plasters, we will buy them. The only thing
that I can't give them more of is time. We are up
against a deadline on September 2nd to get this
work done. >> You can't make a mistake
like this and then ask the public to just trust you.
You have to be willing to build that trust by being
completely transparent. >> Regardless of how much
cleaning and repainting is done. One fact remains that
these schools still have decades of lead paint inside
them. So the only way to truly eliminate this risk,
NPS officials say, is to rebuild.
>> I think that we need to do some either major
renovations or new builds, and we need a significant
100 year plan in Milwaukee, public schools. We have to
make some hard decisions as a community about the
investments we want to make in our children's future.
>> Reporting from Milwaukee. >> Reporting from Milwaukee.