Dear Freire Wilmington Families: In October 2020, the Delaware Department of Education and the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) began a sampling initiative in Delaware schools to identify the levels of lead within the drinking water system. They completed their sampling in early 2022, which included testing three water sources at Freire Wilmington last January. DPH uses guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine if unsafe levels of lead are present in school drinking water. Any sample that is higher than the EPA maximum contaminant level for lead, which is .015 mg/L, would necessitate remediation. All three samples collected at Freire Wilmington in January yielded a result that was below the EPA maximum contaminant level for lead. But, as you may have read in the news, one of these samples was elevated, with a reading of 0.00916 mg/L. DPH’s recommendation for any sample above 0.0075 is continued/additional monitoring. The location of this elevated sample is a sink in our kitchen. This sink is used by staff only, not students, and is not a source of drinking water nor used for cooking. All meals provided at Freire Wilmington are prepared in an off-site kitchen. This sink is used only by staff, for purposes of hand washing. All plates and utensils used by students to consume food are disposable and not washed in this sink. In an abundance of caution, we have placed a sign on the kitchen sink indicating that it is for hand washing only/not for drinking, and we will have the lead level in this sink retested tomorrow, 10/7 and remediate as necessary. In the coming days, we will post our lead testing results on the Students and Families section of the website, so you can review our results and the measures we are taking to keep our students safe. Freire Wilmington takes lead safety very seriously. Prior to the state beginning to test for lead in water, Freire Wilmington had hired an independent contractor to test for lead levels in all 47 sinks, toilets and faucets in 2016 and again 2021. Our next scheduled comprehensive testing is scheduled to occur in 2024 and at least every three years thereafter. Any samples that come back above the EPA action limit are marked Not for Drinking, remediated, and then retested to ensure they are safe. If you have any questions, please reach out to Freire Schools Operations Manager Colandus Francis at colandus@freireschools.org. Yours in partnership | 
