CPS parents want assurance kids not in danger from lead

A few dozen parents and community members peppered schools and city officials Monday night with questions about lead that chipped away at a common theme:

Concerns about the safety of their children in the city’s schools, where, in 27 cases so far, elevated levels of lead have been found in the water.

“All of us parents that come here, what we want is an assurance that this is the priority,” said Richard Myers, joined by his wife and two small children, his 5-year-old daughter in his arms. “We take a look at Flint, Michigan, and we saw that the priority was cutting costs.

“And we’ve certainly had a lot of issues in the last few years at CPS where costs and cutting costs is a priority,” Myers continued at Mather High School, at the first of seven public meetings hosted by officials from the district and the city’s water and public health departments.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool tried to give that reassurance at the district’s first of seven public meetings about ongoing lead testing of school drinking fountains and some sinks.

“Cost is not an issue. We’re spending whatever it takes,” he said.

Claypool later acknowledged the broke district still has no budget for needed repairs, nor estimates of what ongoing testing of schools is costing. CPS began testing its drinking water in April out of what Claypool called “an abundance of caution” in the wake of a massive drinking water scandal in Flint.

Of its 529 campuses, the district has prioritized 324 elementary schools that were built before 1986 when lead pipes were banned, contain cooking kitchens and have a pre-K program. That’s because exposure to lead has been linked to cognitive problems in very young children. All 324 will be tested by the end of Tuesday when classes end for the summer.

Results available from 93 schools have revealed lead in at least one fixture in 27 of those schools, the most recent problems disclosed Monday at Spencer Elementary Technology Academy on the West Side.

CPS said that lead above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s action level of 15 parts per billion was found in three drinking fountains, a kitchen sink and another sink, adding that all of them tested below the action level after the first sample was taken.

All affected fixtures have been shut off and parents at those schools notified.

CPS’ chief facilities officer Jason Kierna said the district has not yet discerned any pattern to the problematic results.

“In the testing protocols we’ve gone through now, we have not been able to trend out any specific type of fountain or specific type of piping … where we can apply that across the district,” Kierna said.

As for remaining schools, the next batch to be tested once classes resume in the fall will be the 146 schools — elementary or high school — built before 1986, he said.

Six more meetings will be held at high schools across the city.

• June 21: Michele Clark High School, 5101 W. Harrison St., at 4 p.m.
• June 21: Walter Payton College Preparatory High School, 1034 N. Wells St., at 6 p.m.
• June 22: Back of the Yards, 2111 W. 47th St., at 6 p.m.
• June 23: Hyde Park Academy High School, 6220 Stony Island Ave., at 4 p.m.
• June 23: Corliss High School, 821 E. 103rd St., at 6 p.m.
• June 24: Simeon High School, 8147 S. Vincennes Ave., at 4 p.m.