Responding to the crisis in Flint, Michigan, school officials across the country are testing classroom sinks and cafeteria faucets for lead, trying to uncover any concealed problems and reassure anxious parents.
Just a fraction of schools and day care centers are required to check for lead because most receive their water from municipal systems that test at other locations. State and federal lawmakers have called for wider testing.
Among schools and day cares operating their own water systems, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data analyzed by The Associated Press showed that 278 violated federal lead levels at some point during the past three years.
Roughly a third of those had lead levels that were at least double the federal limit. Most problems can be traced to older buildings with lead pipes.
