Lead testing in school drinking water, state by state

Confirms NASBE. ADEM completed EPA-funded VOLUNTARY testing: over 5,000 samples analysed at over 1,100 schools and childcare facilities, in a grant round begun 2020 that expanded an earlier 2017-2019 programme. Results reported in state and local press November 2025. Program page live (HTTP 200); exact results surface not yet confirmed at source.

Resolves all three NASBE Unknowns to: no published results. Listed by EPA as 'coming soon'. ⚠️ 'Coming soon' means no WIIN-GRANT results portal; it does NOT prove the state publishes nothing anywhere. Confirm before publishing this as a negative. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

⚠️ Results live under the DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES (azdhs.gov), not ADEQ -- which is why the ADEQ trail dead-ended: azdeq.gov/LeadScreeningProg returns a genuine 404 and the rest of azdeq.gov WAF-blocks automated access. ADEQ's screening was a SIX-MONTH exercise from January 2017: 16,125 samples from 14,782 fixtures at all public school district schools, 96% within screening levels. One-time, not ongoing. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes. Run through the Dept of Education (DESE) rather than an environmental agency. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

Confirms NASBE on paper but the mandate has EXPIRED. AB 746 (effective 2018-01-01) required community water systems to test all public K-12 school sites built before 2010-01-01, by 2019-07-01. The program ENDED 2019-07-01 and its database is CLOSED to new submissions, though some districts self-tested after 2020. Results for 7,500+ schools remain published via a searchable map and, importantly, as a machine-readable dataset on the California Open Data portal (T1). Same pattern as Oregon but far larger: comprehensive coverage of a snapshot that is now seven years old. Do NOT present California as currently monitoring.

Confirms NASBE. CDPHE 'Test and Fix Water for Kids' publishes a public results dashboard; EPA credits the programme with covering ~600,000 children. URL from EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09).

Resolves all three NASBE Unknowns to: no published results. Listed by EPA as 'coming soon'. ⚠️ 'Coming soon' means no WIIN-GRANT results portal; it does NOT prove the state publishes nothing anywhere. Confirm before publishing this as a negative. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

Confirms NASBE. Division of Public Health publishes a 2023 sampling-results dashboard on the state open-data portal. ⚠️ The Socrata dataset uuy8-qehn reports 1,458 rows but both field listing and CSV export returned EMPTY -- resolve before ingesting. URL from EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09).

Confirms NASBE (5 ppb). District law requires every drinking water source to test below 5 ppb -- the FDA bottled-water standard -- and any source above it is immediately removed from service while DCPS notifies families. DGS has tested every water fountain in every DCPS building ANNUALLY since 2007 as self-imposed policy, and publishes results; DC PCSB publishes charter school results separately. Spring 2025 charter round: 1,807 devices / 3,614 samples, 6 devices elevated and remediated. Among the most rigorous regimes in the country.

Confirms NASBE. FDEP runs a Voluntary Lead Testing Program for Schools and Childcare Facilities built on EPA 3Ts guidance, free to SELECTED facilities -- so coverage is bounded by selection, not statewide. Program page live (HTTP 200); results surface not yet confirmed at source.

⚠️ CORRECTED on direct API test. An earlier pass recorded Georgia as publishing because the RTI dashboard route returns HTTP 200. It does -- but it is EMPTY. The platform API lists only 42 Georgia facilities and every one has has_results_available=false and has_legacy_results_available=null. North Carolina on the identical platform returns 10,482 facilities with 2,083 carrying results, so this is Georgia's tenant being unpopulated, not a platform fault. A live dashboard with zero results tells a parent nothing, so this counts as not publishing. ⚠️ FOLLOW-UP: Environment America has reported 45% of 2,000+ Georgia samples above the recommended standard, so testing data exists somewhere; it is simply not in the portal EPA points to. Find where before finalising. Coverage and data vintage are left blank rather than rated: both describe published data, and this jurisdiction publishes none.

Confirms NASBE. Hawaii DOH publishes WIIN lead testing results (confirmed live). EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

Confirms NASBE. Idaho Bureau of Laboratories offers free lead testing to public schools and child care facilities, and IDEQ publishes the results on its website. Action level 20 ppb -- tied with Tennessee as the most permissive in the country and 20x Massachusetts. Testing is voluntary, so coverage is partial.

REQUIRES TESTING BUT PUBLISHES NO RESULTS - verified directly at IDPH: the page describes requirements only, with no database, spreadsheet, map or download. Pre-2000 buildings serving pre-K-grade 5 had to test and report to IDPH by end of 2018; schools notify parents directly above 5 ppb, so no cross-school comparison is possible. IDPH review found most schools detected lead in at least one source.

CHANGED since NASBE (listed No on sharing). Indiana Finance Authority publishes 'Indiana Lead Sampling Program: Enrollment and Results' school-by-school -- facility name, county, whether fixtures exceeded 15 ppb, remediation status -- updated QUARTERLY (confirmed live, last updated 2025-10-14). T3 because it is PDF, not machine-readable. Program sampled 915+ school buildings covering 60% of Indiana public school students; 61% of schools had at least one fixture over 15 ppb, though on average only 8% of fixtures per building.

CHANGED since NASBE (listed No) BUT the flip is nearly meaningless in practice. Appendix C of the Iowa DNR Public Drinking Water Program Annual Compliance Report publishes WIIN results for 2025-04-01 to 2026-03-31: FOUR organizations, 28 buildings, 119 total tests, 1 result over the action level. Iowa has roughly 1,300 public schools. Counting this as 'publishes results' without stating the coverage would badly mislead. Testing is voluntary.

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes. Public 120Water results portal, confirmed live. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

⚠️ CONFLICTING SIGNALS -- EPA's index marks Kentucky's programme '(coming soon)', i.e. no results portal, yet an ArcGIS layer titled 'KY Lead Drinking Water Reduction in Schools and Childcare Centers' exists under the Energy and Environment Cabinet. Could not determine whether that layer carries results or only programme geography. Left Unknown deliberately rather than guessed; needs primary confirmation.

Confirms NASBE. LDH administers the WIIN grant program offering free testing at eligible schools and child care facilities, and publishes per-facility 'Final Sampling Report' PDFs under /assets/oph/Center-EH/drinkingwater/WIIN_Act_Water_Sample_Reports/. T3 -- one PDF per school, no bulk dataset. Voluntary and grant-limited, so coverage is partial.

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes. A 2019 law mandated every K-12 school in Maine test for lead; sampling ran Aug 2021 to 2023-06-30. MaineTracking publishes a Tableau dashboard with maps of average lead per school AND tables of INDIVIDUAL FIXTURE results, from standing-water first-draw samples. Caveat carried by the state: the dashboard shows INITIAL results only, not post-remediation, so it overstates current risk at remediated taps. The sampling program has ENDED, so this is a closed 2021-2023 cycle rather than live monitoring. Dashboard: https://oit-tableau.maine.gov/t/DHHS/views/MapSchoolLead-Prod1_0/Dashboard

Confirms NASBE (5 ppb). ALL Maryland schools, public AND nonpublic, serving pre-K to grade 12 must test every three years while school is in session; an outlet above 5 ppb must be CLOSED and remediated. MDE publishes an annual report to the Governor naming each school and address with its results. Most recent cycle (2024-07-02 to 2025-07-01): 294 schools with valid data, 46% (113 public, 2 charter, 19 nonpublic) had at least one sample above 5 ppb; 6.9% of 7,009 valid samples exceeded. Coverage marked partial -- 294 schools is a fraction of Maryland's total, reflecting the rolling three-year cycle. T3: results are published as PDF reports.

Confirms NASBE. MassDEP publishes lead and copper results through the EEA data portal, plus the UMass WaterSmart programme. Massachusetts uses a 1 ppb action level -- the STRICTEST in the country and 20x Tennessee/Idaho. Reported >80% of 62,557 taps tested positive for lead, which is a detection rate at 1 ppb and must never be compared with a 15 ppb state's exceedance rate. URL from EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09).

REVERSED ON BOTH COUNTS since NASBE, which lists MI as No/No. (1) Clean Drinking Water Access Act, 2023 PA 154 + amendments to the Child Care Organizations Act ('Filter First'), effective 2023-10-24, REQUIRES schools and child care centers to adopt a Drinking Water Management Plan, install lead-reducing filters on ALL consumptive fixtures, and TEST filtered water. (2) EGLE publishes a School & Child Care Lead Sampling Dashboard of investigative results. MI is now among the most protective states, not the least. EGLE recommends action above 5 ppb; note the 12 ppb figure seen elsewhere is the COMMUNITY WATER SUPPLY action level (lowered from 15 on 2025-01-01), not a school standard - do not conflate. Tier T3: Power BI export is harder than Socrata/ArcGIS.

CHANGED since NASBE (listed No on sharing). MDH launched a public INTERACTIVE MAP in March 2025 showing lead detected at all public and charter schools and licensed child care centers (confirmed live). Minnesota law has required public/charter schools to test every 5 years AND make results public since 2017; from 2024-07-01 licensed child care centers must test too, and both must report to MDH. Map is NOT yet fully populated -- sites are at different points in their 5-year cycles, 190 had reported at launch (76% of fixtures no lead detected, <5% at or above 5 ppb). Treat coverage as partial and say so.

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes. Delivered as 'SipSafe' through MSU Extension, not a state agency -- same university-extension model as Rhode Island (URI). EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

Resolves a NASBE Unknown to: no published results. Listed by EPA as 'coming soon'. ⚠️ 'Coming soon' means no WIIN-GRANT results portal; it does NOT prove the state publishes nothing anywhere. Confirm before publishing this as a negative. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

Confirms NASBE (5 ppb). Mandatory for all schools accredited by the Montana Board of Public Education, effective 2020-01-17, with initial sampling due 2021-12-31: all drinking fountains and kitchen fixtures, plus all other human-consumption fixtures unless DEQ approves a representative sampling plan. DEQ publishes sample results WITH REMEDIATION STATUS via an EQuIS portal. Note Montana's 5.0 ug/L is chosen as the practical quantitation level for lead -- the lowest reliably measurable concentration -- not as a health-based threshold. Worth stating precisely; it is a different justification from NY/WA/MD's 5 ppb.

CHANGED since NASBE (listed No). DWEE publishes a downloadable xlsx of testing AND remediation results, dated 2025-10-20. Genuinely substantial: 4,099 rows, 723 distinct facilities, 1,982 numeric results, sample-level with facility, collect date, city, location, result ppb and remediation activity. Distribution: median 1.80 ppb, 19.0% at/above 5 ppb, 4.5% at/above 15 ppb, max 2,120 ppb. Testing is VOLUNTARY and free (state-funded testing plus fixture replacement), and the page states plainly that a facility missing from the list may simply never have tested. Mixes schools and childcare (location values like PRESCHOOL, INFANT 1).

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes. EPA's index points to ndep.nv.gov/lead; the separate ndepleadtestingprogram.org site has a Results nav item but /results 404s. Two WIIN-funded programmes (NDEP + DPBH + Dept of Education + Washoe County Health District). EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

CHANGED since NASBE: action level is 5 ppb, not 15. NH law requires ALL public and nonpublic schools and licensed child care programs to sample every outlet available for consumption by children -- fountains, classroom sinks, kitchen sinks. The 'Get the Lead Out of Drinking Water' program's UNH-built public dashboard launched January 2026 and shows levels plus remediation steps, making it one of the freshest state resources in the country. First round processed 23,000+ outlets across 625 schools and 594 licensed child care facilities: 14% of outlets at/above 5 ppb, 25% between 1 and 5 ppb, 61% no lead detected. EPA separately notes NH leads the nation with 360 schools having replaced drinking water apparatus.

Confirms NASBE. NJDOE runs a centralized state-managed database of lead testing per school entity: whether any sample exceeded the action level, date of most recent sampling, a link to full results, and district contact. Updated on a rolling basis. Testing is required on a statewide THREE-YEAR cycle (2021-22, then 2024-25).

CHANGED since NASBE (listed No). NMED runs 'Get the Lead Out NM' (GTLO), offering free sampling to public schools and licensed childcare facilities, and publishes per-facility test reports in two tabs (schools, childcare), stated to be updated regularly. T3: reports are linked one facility at a time, not a bulk machine-readable dataset. Facility count and year range not stated on the page -- quantify before citing coverage.

CHANGED since NASBE: 15->5 ppb effective 2022-12-22 (Public Health Law 1110 revisions). Lead-free building exemption removed; triennial testing cycle. Six Socrata datasets spanning 2016-2026. Column names outlets_gt_5ppb/outlets_lteq_5ppb confirm the 5 ppb level at source.

Confirms NASBE, and NASBE's '10 ppb after 12/21' has taken effect. Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids (NC DPI + NC DHHS + RTI International + Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, launched 2023-09) covers public schools, licensed child care centers and family child care homes for lead in water plus lead paint and asbestos. Public per-facility Data Mapper is live (HTTP 200), browsable by county. Predecessor program Clean Water for Carolina Kids tested ALL child care centers in the state: 97% had lead present and 16% had very elevated lead in at least one tap.

CONFIRMED still not publishing. NDDEQ runs a statewide VOLUNTARY screening program and publishes program guidance only -- no list, table, spreadsheet or map of results. Worse than voluntary: 'there are no funds available from NDDEQ to pay the costs to test water samples from schools and child care facilities for lead', so interested facilities must pay at their own expense. Unfunded and unpublished.

⚠️ CORRECTION -- an earlier pass recorded Ohio as NOT publishing. That was WRONG. Ohio operates a public ArcGIS results dashboard (confirmed live), listed on EPA's own state grant-program contacts index. The error came from searching Ohio EPA's drinking-water pages, where the dashboard is not surfaced, and treating absence there as absence everywhere -- the exact failure mode flagged in that entry. Separately, schools that are themselves public water systems must issue a lead consumer notice to guardians within two business days. Testing is not required statewide, so coverage is partial. Press previously reported 14,000+ fixtures tested with 1,400+ above the federal limit.

Confirms NASBE. Oklahoma DEQ publishes Lead in Water in Schools and Childcare (LWSC) results. NASBE records a combined 1 and 15 ppb action level. URL from EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09).

A THIRD failure mode, distinct from 'does not publish' and 'publishes almost nothing': Oregon publishes an ArcGIS MapSeries of school lead results, but it is a ONE-TIME 2016 dataset and OHA itself warns 'This map contains data submitted in 2016. Schools continue to test, fix problems and retest.' A parent checking it today learns nothing current. Counting Oregon as 'shares results publicly' without the vintage would be misleading. Map: http://geo.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=6a4f2b6001bd474ca7d0a7f0c2552f57

CHANGED 2026: July 2026 budget raised the REPORTING threshold from >0 ppb (Act 39 of 2018) to >=5 ppb. The xlsx schema also changed in May 2026, breaking the time series. Act 39 does not require testing - schools may opt out by discussing lead at an annual public meeting.

Confirms NASBE. RIDOH publishes results on its website; program is a RIDOH + URI Cooperative Extension + RIDE partnership offering free testing, extended to child care facilities in 2024. Progress as reported: 148 public schools covering 60,000+ students, 1,022 faucets and fountains tested -- about half of public schools done, so coverage is partial. ⭐ KEY METHODOLOGY ILLUSTRATION: nearly 80% of FIXTURES detected no lead and under 4% exceeded 10 ppb, but about 70% of SCHOOLS had lead detected in at least one fixture and 21% had high levels in at least one. Same data, wildly different headline depending on the unit of analysis. Our methodology page must state which unit every figure uses.

Confirms NASBE. SC Department of Environmental Services runs a WIIN-funded Lead Testing in Public Schools and Childcare Facilities Grant Program providing free testing statewide. Voluntary and grant-bounded, so coverage is partial. Results surface not yet confirmed at source.

⚠️ CORRECTED on direct test: the 120Water portal EPA still lists for South Dakota is DECOMMISSIONED -- southdakota.120wateraudit.com returns HTTP 303 redirecting to the vendor's marketing homepage (www.120wateraudit.com), serving no state data at all. Kansas, West Virginia and Virginia run the same platform and all resolve normally, so this is South Dakota's tenant being gone rather than a platform outage. Also demonstrates that EPA's contacts index is not perfectly current and its URLs must be tested, not trusted.

Confirms NASBE (20 ppb -- tied with Idaho for the most permissive action level in the country, 20x Massachusetts). Dedicated public results site covering public schools AND licensed child care centers statewide. 2019 law: districts with any building built before 1998 must have a lead testing system; at or above 20 ppb parents must be notified, the source taken offline, and retested 90 days after remediation. A Tennessee Department of Health report found 53 school districts with at least one drinking water source at high lead levels.

⚠️ CORRECTED -- an earlier pass recorded Texas as 'participants only, do not count as publishing'. That was wrong. Texas publishes at txleadtesting.org/public-results (confirmed live), same platform family as Tennessee. The TCEQ ArcGIS layer (1,608 schools + child-care layer, machine-readable) remains a useful participation roster: https://gisweb.tceq.texas.gov/arcgis/rest/services/Public/Lead_Testing_in_School_and_Child_Care_Program_Participants/MapServer . EPA credits Texas with sampling ~97% of its ~1,552 participating facilities. Not state-mandated, so coverage partial. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

Confirms NASBE. Utah DEQ publishes a dynamic school lead report via waterlink.utah.gov (confirmed live) -- supersedes the vaguer 'Lead-Free Learning' reference. Cradock counted Utah among the 7 states with compiled electronic results in 2022. Salt Lake County ArcGIS layers found earlier are LOCAL, not statewide. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

Dedicated public results site (React app); underlying API not yet located - guessed endpoints 404. 98% of schools tested; 1 in 5 taps elevated across 15,000+ taps (Jun 2019 - Dec 2021).

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes, and fills NASBE's N/A action level with 15 ppb. VDH Office of Drinking Water runs an EPA-funded statewide VOLUNTARY sampling program for public PreK-12 schools and licensed child care centers, with a Public Transparency Dashboard (built with 120Water) reporting all sampling results and remediation measures. Separately, Virginia code as amended April 2020 REQUIRES local school boards and licensed child day programs to submit testing plans and results to VDH and to notify parents above 15 ppb -- so the mandate and the published dashboard are two different things, and the dashboard covers only grant-funded projects. Coverage partial for that reason. Environment America graded Virginia a D.

20,366 sample-level rows with lead_ppb per individual sample. Richest raw data found in any state.

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes. Public 120Water results portal, confirmed live. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

RESOLVES NASBE Unknowns on all three columns. Wisconsin DHS runs the schools/child care lead program. NOTE: Wisconsin also has an entirely separate, well-covered LEAD SERVICE LINE story (Wisconsin Watch, June 2026) -- do not conflate service lines with in-building school fixtures. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.

RESOLVES a NASBE Unknown to Yes. Wyoming DEQ lead testing in drinking water page. EPA's Voluntary School and Child Care Lead Testing state grant-program contacts index (retrieved 2026-08-09) is the authoritative index of state RESULTS portals; it is where this URL comes from.