Water at 22 Oakland Schools Tested High for Lead. It’s No Surprise, Parents and Teachers Say

As staff welcomed students back to Frick United Academy of Language in Oakland on Monday, they received concerning information — five water sources at their school contained unsafe levels of lead.

Ella Every-Wortman, who teaches eighth-grade English at Frick, said they were confused and frustrated.

Their two immediate concerns were “first, our safety, and second, how this lapse in communication and complete systems failure had happened,” Every-Wortman said. “The testing was done in April. The information was released in April. So why, as a school site, were we not receiving this information until August?”

Twenty-two campuses in the Oakland Unified School District were contacted this week regarding elevated lead levels, according to district spokesperson John Sasaki.

The district has been “aggressive” in testing water since 2017, he said, but “in this case, we were aggressive about the testing but were not as efficient at communicating in the ways we should have been,” referring to the tests done in April. “That’s something we are working on as an organization.”

On Tuesday morning, parents and community members at the schools received messages from the district, multiple of which have been viewed by KQED, notifying them of the testing and ensuring that the affected water sources were not accessible. Forty schools’ water has been tested, and Sasaki said the number with elevated lead in at least one source could be higher than 22.

Every-Wortman brought their concerns to a school board meeting on Wednesday, where they said the lead levels in one of the tested water sources at Frick was 51 parts per billion. Sasaki could not confirm any levels but said that the testing data would be made publicly available.

The Oakland school board’s maximum allowable level is 5 parts per billion, while the state and federal standard is 15 parts per billion.

The affected campuses had water sources that tested above the board’s maximum allowable level during routine testing over recent months.

In its letter to parents and community members, the district said its buildings and grounds team was installing new filters on every fixture that showed elevated levels of lead or replacing the fixtures and some of the attached piping.

Nate Landry, whose daughter began at Edna Brewer Middle School this week, said that when they got the notice, their reaction “unfortunately was not one of surprise.” Other parents gathered at a parent-teacher-student association coffee meeting on Friday shared similar sentiments.

Multiple pointed to the lead previously identified in water sources at McClymonds High School, where elevated levels were reported in 2016. Over the next few years, 22 more schools were found to have at least one tap with lead levels above 15 parts per billion, according to KTVU. In 2019, lead was also found under the blacktop at two schools in the district.

“This was a predictable problem,” Every-Wortman said. “We have many facilities in this district that were built prior to 1980. They have a high likelihood of containing lead.”

Brewer was built in 1913, and a building at Frick was constructed in 1927.

Oakland Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell is expected to give an update on the district’s progress in addressing the affected water fixtures at the next school board meeting on Aug. 28.

“Each fixture will be tested again after our staff installs the new filters to ensure they comply with our safety standards. We expect the work to be completed over the next several weeks,” the letter sent to Frick parents reads.

One Brewer mom said her kids only use the school’s filtered “FloWater” stations, which the district’s letter said are safe to drink and located on each campus. Most parents KQED spoke with said they were having their children bring water from home — and don’t really worry about them using the water on campus.

One parent lovingly said their daughter “isn’t the queen of hydration.”

With a laugh, Brewer mom, Stefanie Moser, said, “I can’t get [my son] to refill his water bottle during the day.”

“We want the kids to be safe, and we want them to be healthy, and we obviously want the staff to be safe and healthy too because they are drinking the same water out of the pipes,” she continued. “I’m glad that they’ve got a mitigation plan in place and that they’re going to work on it and get it fixed.”

Staff and parents said they hope the district will make it a priority to ensure that the water on campus does not contain lead, but Brewer employee Dinah Despenza said there was “nothing” the district could do that would make her feel comfortable drinking the school’s water.

“I just wash my hands in it, that’s all.”

KQED’s Annelise Finney contributed to this report.