Report: High levels of lead reported in drinking water at OUSD schools

OAKLAND, Calif. ( KRON ) — There are high levels of lead reported in drinking water at nearly two dozen Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) campuses. This is according to reports done dating back to the spring.

Some of the lead levels are 10 or 20 times the allowed limit. But teachers and parents say they were just notified last week, adding students in summer school were exposed to the lead for months.

Stuart Loeble just finished his first week as a new teacher at OUSD. This is also the first time he's dealing with lead in his students’ drinking water.

“It was incredibly distressing for our whole staff,” he said.

Loeble says nearly half of OUSD’s campus tested for some lead in their water. Around 22 campuses are testing at higher rates than what the district deems acceptable. At his school, Frik United Academy of Language, one of the drinking fountains tested 10 times the acceptable limit set by the district.

“How could we be poisoning our students for so many months?” Loeble said.

The bigger issue is no one knows, according to Loeble, that the reports were finished in the spring. No one was notified until the first day of school for OUSD students.

“Frustrating is putting it mildly,” Loeble said. “It’s criminal our students are being exposed.”

Loeble is asking the district to explain why it took so long to report the lead, and he’s asking for bottled water to be handed out to students.

The school district told KRON4 all the fountains tested for high levels were shut off and that they “were not as effective in communicating with everyone involved."

Perhaps one of the most shocking data points was found at Edna Brewer Middle School where a sink faucet used for food preparation was testing at 540 parts of lead per billion.

Keep in mind, the district mandated in 2018 that no water should test higher than five parts per billion.

We were not as effective in communicating with everyone involved. We are putting systems in place to ensure a lack of effective communication does not occur again

John Sasaki, Oakland Unified School District Director of Communications

Nate Landry is a parent at Edna Brewer and says he’s heard of the lead issues in the district that go back decades.

This is not the first time OUSD has dealt with lead in school water supply. In 2017 , pipes at McClymonds High School tested positive for high levels of lead.

The school district says that issue was resolved, but testing in 2022 showed there was still lead in the soil. Landry says the district has the money to fix the lead and is asking more parents to speak out.

“If you’re concerned people have the power and if you want, we can work for the kind of school district we want to see,” Landry said.

KRON4 reached out to OUSD to get more answers as to why exactly it took months to relay this information to schools here in the district. We also asked for a more detailed explanation as to when these issues could be fixed. We have yet to hear back.

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