SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – At Springfield Public Schools (SPS), lead testing results are now back for about half of the district buildings, which were tested late last year as part of a statewide mandate.
Twenty-five out of the twenty-seven buildings show lead levels above the state standard in at least one part of the building.
“We want to make sure that the water our staff and students are drinking is as safe as we can possibly make it,” Deputy Superintendent of Operations Travis Shaw said.
SPS started taking water samples in November of 2023 and finished in December.
“We went from not testing sites to now a new mandate that was three times as restrictive as what the EPA guidelines were,” Shaw said.
Robberson, Weller, and Study are a few schools where drinking fountains, whether it’s stand-alone or attached to a sink, contained unsafe amounts of lead. The district said it is working on different ways to bring the levels down.
“That could be changing out the fixture itself,” Shaw said. “It may mean that we have to install lead filtration.”