Inside OUSD’s haphazard response to an escalating lead crisis

OUSD’s lead disaster, one yr later: half two of a two-part sequence. Learn half one right here.

Every week into the final faculty yr, workers on the Oakland faculty district’s central workplace have been fielding a barrage of emails. A disaster had exploded after the August 2024 faculty board assembly, as dad and mom expressed their confusion and frustration on the discovery that consuming water at dozens of colleges was contaminated with lead. 

One electronic mail got here from the group faculty supervisor at Redwood Heights Elementary, Mariarene Galvez. “Do you occur to have further water bottles I might choose up from you?” she wrote. The varsity’s water fountains, she stated, “are bagged off” whereas they awaited take a look at outcomes. “Utilizing the FloWater is nice,” she wrote of a brand new filtered water station, “however we don’t have water bottles.”

“Hello Ren,” a central workplace workers member, Michelle Oppen, responded. “Sadly, I do not need refillable water bottles at hand out proper now.”

In one other thread Tanisha Garrett, the principal of Madison Park Academy, a sixth to twelfth grade faculty in East Oakland, emailed Preston Thomas, the district’s chief methods and providers officer. “Hello, Might we get water bottles for all of our college students since they gained’t have entry to water fountains?” she requested.

“We now have ordered some and they won’t be coming in for a number of weeks,” Thomas replied. “You wouldn’t be the very best on the checklist, as there are about 16 colleges that solely have 1 FloWater system and no different water sources I’d ask college students to carry them.” 

These electronic mail exchanges, obtained by The Oaklandside, supply a window into the chaos final yr as officers at Oakland Unified Faculty District sought to answer the lead disaster engulfing the district. Along with different inner paperwork and interviews, they make clear the district’s years-long wrestle to guard children and workers from lead publicity.

OUSD officers first grew to become conscious of their lead drawback in 2017, however the district didn’t full complete, sequential testing of each consuming water supply till late July 2025, with evaluation of these outcomes nonetheless pending. Which means OUSD nonetheless doesn’t know, in lots of circumstances, whether or not the contamination is coming from lead pipes, soldering, or fixtures. An improvised system of labeling left college students, academics, and workers unclear for years about which sources of water had been examined and deemed secure to drink. The dearth of a monitoring system left even district officers unclear on the place remediation was full. 

The district rapidly labored to put filtered consuming water stations in colleges, however these, too, have been quickly stricken by issues. College students and workers stated machines have been regularly clogged or went offline and there weren’t sufficient reusable water bottles and cups to go round. This, blended with the concern and confusion over what sources of water have been secure to drink, led many college students to forgo consuming water altogether. 

The district has spent the final yr addressing many of those points. There’s a brand new system in place for monitoring testing and repairs. This summer season, Thomas, the district workers member in command of overseeing the lead remediation, stated the district accomplished sequential testing of each designated consuming water supply at each faculty with the intention to higher establish the causes of the contamination. He stated these checks didn’t embody classroom sinks or different fixtures that aren’t designated for consuming, however he stated the district will add clear signage to alleviate confusion over what water sources have been cleared as secure.

After reviewing lots of of information and conducting a number of interviews with Thomas and different district representatives, The Oaklandside has discovered that many questions stay unanswered eight years into the lead disaster: What are the sources of every faculty’s lead contamination? How a lot will it price to repair the issue districtwide? Will repairs and water filter methods be sufficient to ensure all children with secure water? And the way will belief be rebuilt with dad and mom, academics, and college students? 

A disaster unfolds

It was a highschool athletic coach who first introduced OUSD’s lead drawback to mild. Ben Tapscott was a basketball coach at McClymonds Excessive Faculty, a traditionally Black faculty in West Oakland, when he observed that water coming from the college’s taps had a worrisome brown tinge. He put stress on the college district to check the water, and what lab work revealed, in 2017, was lead ranges a number of instances larger than the Environmental Safety Company’s acceptable threshold, 15 elements per billion — the usual then in place on the district as properly. 

In keeping with the EPA, there’s no safe level of exposure to lead. Lead publicity poses an particularly excessive danger to kids and might trigger listening to and speech issues, slowed development, mind and nervous system injury, and studying and behavioral challenges, all of which may final by way of maturity. 

A 2022 study printed by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being discovered that relating to elevated lead ranges in kids, “racial and different disparities” stay “stubbornly and statistically vital.”

Prompted by Tapscott and different West Oakland environmental advocates, OUSD labored with the East Bay Municipal Utility District to check a random number of drinking water sites in any respect district-run colleges and childhood growth facilities. Information present virtually half of the samples got here again with lead ranges above 15 elements per billion or with take a look at outcomes listed solely as “pending.”

The district introduced that it will undertake a sequence of remediation efforts, together with the replacement or removal of fixtures that have been leaching lead. 

The Oaklandside has discovered these remediation efforts could have been incomplete. 

Emails we obtained present that the district’s fundamental level individual on lead testing in 2024, Sorbor Twegbe, stated final August that within the case of not less than one faculty the place testers discovered elevated lead ranges in 2018, Frick United Academy of Language, he was “not notified of any repairs being full.”

Thomas didn’t step into his present position till 2019 and stated he was not a part of the preliminary lead response. However in his understanding, he stated, “In any case through which elevated ranges of lead have been present in high-use consuming water fixtures, the supply was faraway from service.” These fixtures have been both repaired or stored out of service completely, he stated, by way of elimination or by shutting off water circulate to the fixture.

In 2018, as that spherical of remediation was underway, the college board voted to undertake a clean drinking water policy that lowered the district’s acceptable degree of lead from 15 to five elements per billion. That very same yr, a California legislation went into impact, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, that mandated colleges throughout the state test water from fixtures in any respect colleges constructed earlier than 2010 — which incorporates the overwhelming majority of Oakland colleges. 

District officers have been working with restricted assets, having simply had their budget cut by $14 million. They examined solely a pattern of consuming water sources — particular person fountains and taps — at every faculty website, leaving many sources untested.

Till the following spherical of testing started six years later, there was no manner for college students, academics, and workers to know if an untested consuming fountain was secure for consuming or not. 

“Lots of these have been samplings of 5 fixtures all through the college,” stated Thomas of the spherical of testing in 2017 and 2018. “Now we’re beginning to see with the depth of testing that for those who simply examined a few areas, you will have missed some areas.”

Taps not examined remained unmarked and in use, Thomas confirmed.

The district posted an FAQ that also stays dwell on its water quality webpage, concerning the outcomes of that spherical of testing. ‘When this problem first arose,” it reads, “we examined water in all colleges and decided that, most often, the elevated ranges of lead got here from older fixtures, taps, and consuming fountains. It was clear the first drawback was not the constructing pipes.”

It’s now clear the district didn’t but have the reply to the query of the place the lead contamination was coming from — and it nonetheless doesn’t.

“Whereas most outcomes proceed to level to fixtures because the supply,” Thomas informed The Oaklandside, “some samples have instructed the potential of points throughout the piping.” 

In that first spherical of testing, Thomas stated, the district was taking single samples from every fixture. This methodology, the district would come to study, wasn’t adequate to offer officers a transparent image of the contamination supply. With out ample flushing and retesting, there was no solution to know whether or not the lead was coming from the fixtures themselves — or from pipes contained in the partitions.

In 2022, faculty fixtures with elevated ranges of lead in 2017-2018 were retested. Once more, lead was discovered at websites all through the district, and once more, the district undertook remediation efforts, according to its public timeline. Two years later, the scope of OUSD’s lead drawback can be thrust into public view, for the second time, and the district can be left scrambling to maintain its almost 34,000 college students secure.

A failure to trace repairs

Final August, district workers alerted principals at 43 colleges {that a} recent spherical of checks had proven that a few of their consuming water sources nonetheless had elevated ranges of lead.

Emails obtained by The Oaklandside reveal the district’s failure to trace that summer season’s testing and remediation work. On Aug. 13, a central workplace administrator, Kate Sugarman, reached out to Thomas after a district electronic mail went out to a number of elementary colleges, notifying them of their lead outcomes and subsequent steps. 

“I see that neither Horace Mann, Bella Vista or Cleveland are on this electronic mail, however these websites have all had taps bagged and it’s unclear if all of the repairs and last testing have been full,” Sugarman wrote. “Tell us what the replace is with these websites.”

Later within the thread, Rebecca Littlejohn, OUSD’s danger administration officer, defined that Thomas had “simply developed this tracker,” referencing a Google spreadsheet, and stated any lacking faculty websites ought to be added.

The inconsistent monitoring left the 2 officers with fully completely different impressions of the state of repairs.

“Cleveland has not been repaired,” Littlejohn wrote in the identical thread, suggesting that the principal, Peter Van Tassel, “ought to talk that they’re awaiting repairs and clearance testing.”

Sugarman responded minutes later, saying that Van Tassel “informed me immediately that Twegbe was there final week and informed him every thing was good besides the cafeteria and 1 classroom — indicators appear to have been eliminated.”

“Rebecca, possibly it is best to attain out to VT [Van Tassel] to speak it by way of.”

Not till this yr did OUSD implement a complete system for monitoring which fixtures had or hadn’t been examined or repaired.

In actual fact, Thomas stated, up till this summer season, district officers didn’t know what number of complete consuming water sources their colleges had. 

Whereas OUSD was persevering with to check its fixtures, two very completely different units of consuming water sources remained obtainable to be used: those who examined safely beneath the district’s 5 elements per billion  — and those who hadn’t but been examined. This triggered widespread confusion over which water sources have been secure to make use of.

Thomas informed The Oaklandside that the district, quickly after the beginning of the college yr, applied a sticker system to mark when consuming sources had been examined and deemed secure. 

“Previous to the system of stickering examined water sources, it wasn’t simple to distinguish what had been examined and what had not been examined,” he stated. “Throughout that point, websites that had not been examined or had excessive charges of elevated take a look at outcomes have been directed to make use of FloWater machines on website or consuming fountains that had been repaired, retested, and documented with stickers.”

Thomas acknowledged that the system isn’t good. “Youngsters have been peeling the stickers off,” he stated. “They only disappear.” 

Bother on the FloWater station

For OUSD, getting college students entry to secure water was important. Whereas the district continued to check and restore fixtures final yr, it additionally labored to put in extra water filtration stations at colleges throughout the district. By final October, the district had allotted $644,000 to buy filtered water methods, set up them, and provide colleges with refillable bottles. These stations — primarily sourced from the manufacturers FloWater and Elkay — have been designated for elementary colleges with the very best lead ranges and colleges with the most important pupil populations.

So far, Thomas informed The Oaklandside, OUSD has put in 218 filtered water stations — permitting the district to get near its stated goal of 1 station for each 200 college students at every faculty. The aim for this coming faculty yr is one station for each 100 college students. The thought, Thomas stated, was to “ensure first there was one water supply that we knew you could possibly rely upon.”

“We are able to’t afford to attend on the piping piece, as a result of that might be 10, 15, years,” stated then superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammel in March 2025. “In order that’s the entire level of going and having the FloWaters districtwide.

Issues with the methods rapidly emerged.

There weren’t sufficient stations at some colleges, college students and workers stated. At others, the stations weren’t simply accessible. At many others, they stated, the stations would regularly go offline — normally, in line with the district, as a result of clogged filters.

In an August 19 electronic mail, Amapola Obrera, the principal of Frick United Academy of Language, wrote to district workers, “Our FloWater station shouldn’t be in a position to sustain with the demand at FUAL, together with the Workplace of Fairness workers, and at the moment isn’t offering water. It’s 1:33pm and now we have college students and workers on campus till 6:00pm. We urgently want water bottles offered ASAP.”

“A number of different sources in your faculty have water beneath 5 ppb and even many which are non-detect for Lead that can be utilized to fill water bottles,” Thomas replied. “There are different areas that you need to use to entry the water.”

Obrera requested that the district ship somebody to establish secure water sources “as quickly as attainable as our FloWater machine nonetheless isn’t working.”

Jonah Lound, a trainer at Emerson Elementary in North Oakland, informed The Oaklandside that when the FloWater machine throughout from his workplace was first put in, it took “two months to truly get on-line.”

Lound is a member of the Get the Lead Out Coalition, a bunch advocating for clear water in OUSD colleges. The coalition, he stated, has additionally raised issues concerning the danger of energy outages. With out energy, FloWater machines go offline. 

“We anticipate extra energy outages to return and once more, normally within the hottest months of the yr,” stated Nate Landry, one other coalition member and a guardian at Edna Brewer, which had fixtures with a number of the highest lead ranges within the district. “It’s simply a fully terrible convergence of issues.”

Thomas stated that the district has a plan: if a faculty loses energy, OUSD will ship bottles of water from its warehouses. He additionally stated the district goals so as to add battery backups to some methods to maintain them on-line throughout outages.

At McClymonds Excessive Faculty, which has borne the brunt of a number of environmental issues over the years, from soil and water contamination to poisonous vapors, one other FloWater problem emerged. In keeping with guardian Ginale Harris, the stations have been positioned poorly across the campus. 

“It’s a really large campus,” she stated. “You solely acquired a pair minutes for the passing interval, and so you may’t make all of it the way in which down that stretch to get the water. After which the second machine is on the third flooring … and there’s no elevator, so you bought to stroll up and down these flooring.”

Thomas informed The Oaklandside that the district initially put in FloWater methods the place it was best — nearer to direct water or energy sources — however will now attempt to set up methods in different, extra handy areas. 

Similar to the scholars at Redwood Heights and Madison Park, many college students at McClymonds don’t have cups or bottles they’ll use to entry the filtered water. Harris stated she is consistently fundraising to get extra clear water and cups into the college. After a donation from one native group, she stated she personally delivered pallets of water to school rooms. 

Information present that OUSD invested not less than $40,000 in buying bottles for college students to make use of at filtered water stations, and Thomas stated extra got here in by way of donations. Altogether, he stated, OUSD offered water bottles to round 20% of the scholar inhabitants in September 2024 and despatched extra bottles “primarily based on site-identified wants.”

In a district with 34,000 college students, 80% of whom qualify for free lunches, OUSD gave out a complete of 14,000 refillable water bottles, Thomas stated, although with key workers out for the summer season, he couldn’t affirm which colleges obtained them. 

The disappearing stickers, the out-of-service FloWaters, the dearth of reusable bottles, and the communication failures have fomented mistrust.

Although Oakland Tech, with its almost block-long campus, had greater than half a dozen FloWater filling stations, science trainer Kylise Hare informed The Oaklandside that many college students keep away from consuming water altogether in the event that they didn’t carry it from house, leaving many displaying as much as class with complications. 

Hare, who simply accomplished her fifth yr as a trainer, used to get consuming water from the sink in her classroom — which isn’t designated as a consuming water supply by OUSD and thus wouldn’t have been examined — however final faculty yr she began bringing water from house as a substitute. She’d generally carry an additional bottle or two for any college students who stated they have been thirsty, she stated. 

“Once I’d ask them in the event that they’ve had water, they’ll say, ‘I forgot my water bottle at house and I don’t need to drink water from faculty. I don’t belief it,’” she stated. 

College students shouldering the burden

Firstly of the spring semester, sixth graders at United for Success Academy have been wanting to plant of their faculty backyard. The 11- and 12-year-olds deliberate to place fruits, greens, and different edibles within the massive planters of their schoolyard after which share the harvest with their faculty group. However their plans have been disrupted by lead.

The autumn semester on the academy — like at so many different OUSD colleges — had been robust. Testing by the district in April 2024 had recognized elevated lead ranges within the water at two of the college’s sinks and three of its water fountains, data that didn’t attain the college group till that fall. United for Success Academy already had a well known lead drawback — elevated ranges within the soil all through their Fruitvale group. Now, take a look at outcomes on the backyard soil had come again constructive for the toxin, too. 

“I used to be form of unhappy,” stated Marlene Aguirre, a sixth-grade pupil. “The place the soil is at, we plant fruit and veggies there. So I used to be like, ‘Are we going to eliminate them? Are we going to have the ability to get pleasure from them?’”

She and her classmates in management class wanted a brand new imaginative and prescient. In the event that they couldn’t develop meals of their group backyard, they’d use their time to know their faculty’s lead disaster — and possibly do a greater job than the district in speaking the dangers. 

The scholars started working with their academics and members of a neighborhood local weather justice group, Frontline Catalysts, to deal with the lead of their soil and their water. Frontline Catalysts had a historical past on the faculty; they’d collaborated with college students there in 2022 to check soil round their group for lead. 

Aguirre stated that after studying concerning the lead in her faculty’s consuming water, she stopped consuming out of fountains and commenced bringing a water bottle to highschool. At school, she labored in a coverage group that spoke to state leaders concerning the want for stricter insurance policies relating to lead testing in colleges. 

“This lead right here in Oakland has been right here for a protracted, very long time,” she stated. “Makes me really feel a bit like, not mad, however identical to, ‘You knew about this, and also you didn’t, , assist about it.’ However I’m very comfortable that we’re attempting to repair it proper now.”

A classmate of Aguirre’s, Nellie Rivas, stated that whereas a few of their different classmates knew concerning the scope of the lead contamination, “some don’t.” She stated whereas her faculty has FloWater stations, she sees college students utilizing uncovered consuming fountains as a result of they don’t have bottles to fill. 

She stated listening to that she’d been uncovered to guide in school made her apprehensive for her long-term well being. She had no concept the place to seek out informational supplies in Spanish to share along with her mom, and even whether or not the district had made any obtainable. (ParentSquare, the district’s communication app, permits any messages for folks to be translated into Spanish.) She wished a reusable water bottle, however the faculty didn’t present one. 

Alex Bledsoe, a documentary filmmaker and activist, has been overlaying Oakland’s lead disaster for a movie she’s making, “Oaklead.” She stated repeatedly she’s seen college students, dad and mom, and academics shoulder duty for the disaster.

“You’re placing the organizing on us. You’re placing the communication, the group training on us. Getting college students water bottles to allow them to use the total FloWater methods on us,” she stated. “And that’s ridiculous.”

Maha Nusrat taught Aguirre and Rivas in her sixth grade management class at United for Success, and she or he labored with Frontline Catalysts on the soil and lead testing they did three years in the past. She stated the dearth of communication by the district has left her feeling “at midnight.”

Out of this darkness, Nusrat and her college students determined to shine some mild. By the tip of the semester, a few of her college students had created a gardening ‘zine overlaying their collaboration with Frontline Catalysts to exchange soil within the gardens and their distribution of water testing kits and academic supplies to households of their communities. One other group of scholars went to Sacramento, the place they spoke on to lawmakers about lead of their group. In addition they spoke at a lead abatement occasion placed on by town of Oakland. Their efforts concluded with a short documentary about their work. 

Nasarut speaks about her college students’ accomplishments with a mixture of delight and frustration. On the age of 11 or 12, she stated, they shouldn’t bear all that duty.

“The negligence is so flagrant,” she stated.

At Oakland Excessive Faculty, one other group of scholars took it upon themselves to get educated about lead poisoning. In Catherine Tao’s environmental science class final spring, they made lead contamination in colleges their senior capstone challenge. Tao’s college students confirmed as much as faculty board conferences, the place they urged district management to implement extra frequent water testing, present well being screenings for college students, and enhance communication.

“We’ve seen a way of not caring and no duty,” stated Daniel Thomas, who graduated in Might. “We determined to take it into our personal fingers.”

By late final fall, Thomas stated the district finally realized it wanted to modify from randomized samples to testing each single designated consuming water supply at each faculty. By late July of this yr, he stated, the district had accomplished that work, conducting sequential testing of two,334 consuming water fixtures, together with consuming fountains, water bottle filling stations, and prep sinks — the three-basin sinks at school kitchens. He stated the district expects to current the outcomes to the college board’s services committee after which to the total board this fall. 

Thomas additionally stated the district will carry on water high quality consultants to assist analyze the outcomes, following a bidding course of, in an effort to raised establish the sources of the lead contamination. 

Regardless of going through a projected $30 million deficit for the upcoming faculty yr, the board approved $20.5 million in extra funding for lead abatement in March — $15 million from Measure Y, $4.5 million from Measure J, and a $1 million grant.

Faculties which are at the moment being renovated as a part of current capital tasks will get upgraded pipes, Thomas stated, however a call hasn’t been made about whether or not to aim a full-scale remediation of the pipes in each faculty constructing throughout the district. The price of that might vary from $15 million to over $60 million, in line with OUSD Board Director Valarie Bachelor, chair of the board’s services committee, relying on how the district chooses to deal with its lead drawback — together with whether or not the district replaces all or a few of its pipes.

“What full-scale remediation means is a important query,” Thomas stated. “Proper now, we’re ensuring that college students have entry to scrub, dependable consuming water that meets OUSD water high quality requirements.”

When requested whether or not the district can assure that every one OUSD college students have entry to secure consuming water, Thomas stated, “That’s what we’re attempting to do.”