Students in seven school buildings across the city returned to their usual classrooms this week after emergency work was done to remediate deteriorated lead-based paint, according to New York City's Department of Education. The department said it identified twelve rooms during a review of its lead-paint inspection logs that were supposed to have been repaired before the start of the school year, but never were, leaving students in classrooms with active lead-paint hazards since at least September. The story was first reported by the New York Post.

“The safety of our students is our top priority," said DOE press secretary, Miranda Barbot, in a written statement. "We are conducting a thorough investigation to ensure an unacceptable error does not happen again.”

Students were removed from those classrooms on Friday and school officials said parents were notified. The DOE did not respond to WNYC’s request for a list of the seven school buildings affected.

On Monday, December 16th, WNYC will host a free, live event on lead in the city's schools with Mayor Bill de Blasio's Senior Advisor for Lead Prevention, Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson.

Over the past summer, the city conducted lead-paint remediation work in over 1,800 3-K through first-grade classrooms after an investigation by WNYC into lead-paint contamination in four public elementary schools prompted the DOE to conduct citywide inspections. Lead paint was banned in New York City in 1960, but city records show the DOE continued to use it in school buildings until around 1980. In some elementary schools, WNYC found loose lead-paint chips on floors and other areas accessible to students and lead-dust levels 100 to 1,000 times higher than the city's safety standards.

In response, the DOE has expanded its inspection protocols, and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is revising the city's health code to better ensure classrooms are safe. School custodians will now visually check for deteriorated paint three times a year in schools constructed before 1985, and those inspections will also now include first-grade classrooms, school libraries, cafeterias, gyms, auditoriums and bathrooms, whereas before, the DOE procedures only encompassed 3-K, pre-K and kindergarten classrooms, and the visual checks were just once a year. All data on lead-paint hazards will now be made available to parents

However, the fact that a dozen classrooms slipped through the cracks highlights remaining questions about the DOE's inspection process, which is still limited to rooms serving children under six years of age and does not include second-grade classrooms and above.

"DOE needs to test all surfaces in pre-1985 schools for the presence of lead containing paint," said Dr. Morri Markowitz, Director of the Lead Poisoning Treatment and Prevention Program at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, who will also be taking part in WNYC's live event.

In a written list of concerns shared with Council Member Mark Treyger, Chair of the City Council's Education Committee, Markowitz said children older than six may also be at risk of lead ingestion. He believes all rooms should be tested for lead-based paint, including upper grades. Ernst & Young is currently conducting a review of the DOE's protocols, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

Another unanswered question is whether the DOE was conducting annual inspections for peeling lead paint in previous years, as has long been required by the city's health code. Twenty-two percent of the 3-K through first-grade classrooms failed inspections over the summer, which Mayor de Blasio said were conducted out of an "abundance of caution." Such a high failure rate suggests those protocols might not have been universally followed.

WNYC has requested data on past inspections, but has so far not received any information. Last month, City Comptroller Scott Stringer sent a letter to Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, asking him to provide records of all lead-paint inspections and test results conducted over the past years by December 6th. The DOE missed that deadline but asked the Comptroller's office for additional time.


Christopher Werth is a senior editor in WNYC’s Narrative Unit. You can follow him on Twitter at @c_werth.