MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Parents in the Milwaukee Public Schools district are raising red flags over chronic lead problems inside buildings across the district.
Related content: MPS facilities director, responsible for lead clean-up, hired without proper licenses
On Friday, a report released by the state exposed that MPS violated state laws while working to remediate lead in schools. Now, parents are calling for leadership to be held accountable.
"Knowing that not just my kid, but kids across the city are dealing with things that can poison them," Lisa Lucas said.
Lucas is a parent who has children in MPS. She and others are concerned about the lack of transparency and leadership at MPS.
"There wasn't even plastic laid down before they started chipping away at lead paint, where after the work was done, you could see debris and lead paint chips within arm's length of a child's desk," she explained.
Watch: Milwaukee parents call for school facilities director to resign
With the report released Friday, Lucas said she learned that lead cleanup in her first-grade daughter's classroom violated state laws.
"I'm not sure why they didn't do it the safe way,—the right way—but we know that the right way can be done," Lucas said. "To know that it just blatantly wasn't, means that somebody didn't do their job properly and we can no longer trust that person to do the work."
"And who's that person," Reporter Jenna Rae asked.
"Sean Kane the facilities director who we're calling on to resign," she responded.
Related content: MPS parent concerns increase after TMJ4 story about facilities director's lack of required license
Kane is the head of the department that's been in charge of lead cleanup at MPS for the past several weeks.
Part of the district's own policy is that annual lead assessments are completed, but in a February press conference, Kane couldn't say when the last one was done.
"So is MPS not following that policy," Rae asked Kane.
"Well it's not even so much a policy," Kane said. "We do have staff that's in the building every day, and if there's something observed it's supposed to be entered in."
That same day, Kane said, "we're utilizing certified people to stabilize lead painted surfaces."
The state report shows employees of MPS and the people hired by Kane were not certified to do lead remediation.
"I believe that Sean Kane doesn't know what he's doing to lead his department," Lucas explained. "I believe he is not the right person who should be in charge of keeping our schools clean, safe and well managed."
TMJ4 called Kane directly to see if he had a response to parents calling for him to resign. He never returned the calls.
A spokesperson for the district confirmed that the new superintendent, Dr. Brenda Cassellius, hired a former employee to oversee the lead cleanup.
Michael Turza was hired Monday, March 17.
Parents said they want Kane out and expect transparency moving forward.
"We wanna know which schools have been tested, we wanna know what those results are, we shouldn't have to pull teeth in order to find those things out," Lucas said.
In addition to parents scrutinizing Kane, employees of his have been vocal too. Last month, anonymous employees came forward and talked exclusively with TMJ4 about Kane being hired without the required license.
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
