Milwaukee Parents Demand Comprehensive Solution to Lead Crisis

Mike McCallister

Posted July 25, 2025

It’s been seven months since several children became poisoned by lead paint accumulating in the windowsills of a half-dozen very old Milwaukee public schools. Parents and other community members are organizing to protect the children.

Milwaukee has many schools that are more than a century old. The seven schools closed for lead issues were built in the period from 1886 to 1927. Nearly half of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) buildings were built before 1978, when lead paint was banned from US schools. Since the Milwaukee Health Department identified MPS as a lead hazard, seven schools were closed for lead abatement, some for days, others for months prior to the end of the school year.

One school, Golda Meir Lower Campus, had lead levels up to 170 times higher than state standards, while testers at a second school, Kagel Elementary, found individual floor samples with lead levels up to 72 times higher than these standards.

Current state standards allow significantly more lead than recently adopted federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. The new standards reduce the level of lead in dust considered “hazardous” from 10 micrograms per square foot on floors and 100 micrograms per square foot on window sills to “any reportable level.”

Always remember, there are zero “safe levels” of lead in the human body. Lead poisoning can be responsible for brain damage, behavioral disorders and many other lifelong problems.

Kristen Payne, parent of a child at Golda Meir School and a founder of Lead-Safe Schools MKE said in March that “Our understanding is that if Wisconsin adopted the EPA rule change on lead dust thresholds today, that nearly all of the surfaces tested thus far in MPS schools would be considered a lead hazard. The EPA has stated that the new rule is aimed at better aligning with the science that shows no amount of lead is safe.” She charged that the Milwaukee Health Department’s failure to label lead dust levels below the old EPA thresholds as hazardous without noting the rule change misleads the public.

School Underfunding and Lead

While MPS administration is ultimately responsible for this crisis, state government also has a share. MPS gets most of its funding from property taxes and state government. The Wisconsin legislature has funded private schools participating in the “school choice” program more lavishly than urban public schools for decades. One result of that funding imbalance was MPS cutting 85% of its painting staff in the past 30 years, in part to pay teachers a reasonable wage. Painting over lead-based paint helps to seal the lead away from children.

The legislature granted a bit more money to MPS in the 2023 state budget, but on the condition that they restore cops (aka “school resource officers”) to the public schools. MPS allowed its contract with the Milwaukee police to expire in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Parents fight back

Lead-Safe Schools MKE came together in the early days of the lead crisis, demanding the attention of MPS administration, public health officials and the elected leaders of MPS and the City. They’ve organized three bilingual community meetings in different parts of the city to inform and organize.

With the support of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, Lead-Safe Schools MKE wants inspections for lead in water for all MPS buildings. The city installed lead-free service lines connecting schools to the city’s water system, but internal lead plumbing remains in some schools. MPS claims the students’ drinking fountains are lead-free, but Lead-Safe Schools Milwaukee suggests that MPS should not assume kids won’t drink from handwashing sinks and other sources not marked specifically for drinking. Teachers also report students frequently fill water bottles from classroom and cafeteria sinks. Lunch is also cooked with potentially lead-laden water.