Commonwealth school districts are still working on improving buildings and environments

Cities across the commonwealth – from Philadelphia to Scranton to Pittsburgh – have long dealt with a myriad of menaces inside their school buildings, from mold and asbestos in walls and ceilings to lead in the drinking water, prompting schools to partially close, move or even cancel classes over the years due to the need for remediation. 

Roughly three-quarters of the state’s 3,200 schools were built before the 1980s. The average age of a school building in the commonwealth is roughly 70 years old – 20 years older than the national average – meaning that students and staff spend their days in structures with asbestos-containing materials that insulate pipes and cover floors, and are thus more likely to be exposed to those construction materials, which have since been banned as health hazards.

“Common with a lot of old infrastructure and older school districts, we have asbestos-containing building materials, lead in paint and other typical environmental concerns,” Sanjeeb Manandhar, Pittsburgh Public Schools’ environmental sustainability manager, told City & State. “Our focus is on proactive management of those materials and safe removal before hazards arrive.”

But with what many health experts call lax federal and state environmental testing and tracking requirements, students and school employees must rely solely on school district disclosure, which doesn’t always happen. 

“You have this problem that’s been kicked down the road for decades,” David Masur, executive director of the environmental advocacy nonprofit PennEnvironment, told City & State. “It’s analogous to being a homeowner: There’s constant repair … and if you find a problem and don’t fix it, it only makes matters worse.”

Amid increasing facility needs, districts have looked to the state for support with remediation and renovation dollars. But with limited resources and funding, and with a state budget still in flux, Masur added, “this is like a lot of stuff, sadly, in America. We have a lot of infrastructure that’s dilapidated – school buildings are just added to the list.”

Rocky report card

In August, just before most districts opened their doors, the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Women for a Healthy Environment, which addresses environmental exposures that impact public health, released its 2025 State of Environmental Health in Pennsylvania Schools Report, highlighting the health and safety hazards – and potential fixes – for schools around the commonwealth. 

The report found that some school districts have spotty testing consistency and that their capacity to remediate such issues is even more questionable. The majority of districts tested for lead in drinking water, mold and overall water quality, while some also screened for radon, lead paint and other substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Among the districts that did conduct testing:

• 95% found lead in drinking water
• 61.5% reported mold in their buildings
• 55% reported excess lead in paint 
• 75% reported excess radon, a naturally occurring radioactive, invisible and odorless gas that is the second-leading cause of lung cancer
• 19% reported water contaminants exceeding safety standards, including lead, copper, PFAS – also known as “forever chemicals” – and bacteria 

And among the districts that conducted testing, even fewer took action to remediate these environmental hazards, finding that: 

• 29% of school districts took action to remove mold
• 11% of school districts tried to remediate lead in drinking water
• No school took action to remove radon, lead in paint or water quality issues 

“With managing asbestos … It’s like doing your laundry. Unless you are building a brand-new facility, you’re always going to have the process of the six-month and three-year inspections and then remediation when you have friable asbestos-containing materials,” Oz Hill, Philadelphia School District’s Deputy Superintendent of Operations, told City & State. “It is a function of the age of construction of our buildings.”

Although environmental hazards impact school buildings statewide, the report also found that low-income districts had higher student asthma rates and fewer measures to reduce asthma triggers than wealthier districts. Racial disparities also emerged, showing that 11% of white children, 17% of Black children and 17% of Hispanic children had been diagnosed with asthma, with the state average, about 14%, nearly double the national average. 

When it comes to lead in drinking water, Masur said the problem is so pervasive that school districts should use what little resources they have on immediate remediation. 

“Our philosophy and belief on this is we have tons of testing data, and the testing data shows there’s tons of lead … let’s just fix the problem,” Masur told City & State, arguing that school districts should think about long-term, cost-effective solutions to their environmental issues. “It’s not the only environmental risk in our schools. There’s asbestos, there’s mold, there’s lead paint.”

Past and present

Earlier this year, the School District of Philadelphia, which had fallen behind on asbestos inspections, became the first district in the country to ever be criminally charged with such environmental violations. The district, which had been under investigation since 2020, entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice after complying with the probe and vowing to keep pace with federal testing requirements. 

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., who assumed leadership of the district in 2022, acknowledged past gaps in asbestos management and has now put a new emphasis on fixing its facilities. 

Hill told City & State that the School District of Philadelphia’s environmental budget increased from $10.2 million in fiscal year 2021 to $61 million in FY 2025 thanks to public and private funding that has expedited the compliance process. 

“With all of those (environmental) programs, we are doing an extraordinary job … (The Department of Justice) allowed us to enter into that agreement because of the work that has been accomplished with the program over the last several years,” Hill said. 

Similarly, in May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement to resolve alleged violations of the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, or AHERA, with the Scranton School District dating back to inspections from before 2020. 

The federal agency alleged that the district failed to include all required asbestos management plans for 15 of its schools and to keep updated copies of plans for 19 schools. District leadership has since committed to adhering to AHERA regulations, which require public school districts and nonprofit schools to inspect schools for asbestos, prepare management plans and take action to prevent or reduce asbestos hazards.

In a conversation with City & State, Scranton School District leadership said that, with the help of greater public and private investment, their school buildings are in much better condition. 

“Over those five years, we’ve taken out over 250 tons – approximately 500,000 pounds – of asbestos-containing materials from our buildings,” Patrick Laffey, Scranton School District’s assistant to the superintendent for operations, told City & State. “We’re happy to report that five years ago, there were probably 19 buildings in the district that contained ACM; now, we’re down to approximately two.”

Laffey and Robert Rucker, Scranton’s director of operations, said more than $2.6 million in total investment was needed to perform remediation that follows federal guidelines, including contracting certified specialists, ripping out walls and continuing to test amid abatement. They said there was a “big disparity” statewide between the amount of funds districts applied for and the amount allocated toward environmental grants, let alone the funds that would be needed to meaningfully address  capital project backlogs.  

Scranton is far from alone: The School District of Philadelphia’s capital backlog is more than $4.5 billion, even when taking into account ongoing efforts to shutter schools with declining enrollment. 

And Pittsburgh Public Schools, like many districts in the state, would have to dip into reserves by October should the state budget fail to pass. Amid the impasse in Harrisburg, school districts would be forced into the red to fund special education, transportation and employee Social Security contributions, draining district coffers even more as capital projects persist. 

“Our conditions assessment now has more than $400 million of building improvements that need to be done,” Laffey said, noting that recent state investments have helped. “More capital-related opportunities for school districts would be very beneficial, and some of the districts that have the highest need can kind of plead their case and get some more eyes on the buildings we have.” 

Remediation granted

Such construction conundrums are commonplace, but success stories and continued corrections are also keeping pace. 

Since 2016, Pittsburgh Public Schools’ “Filter First” approach in managing lead in drinking water, also utilized in cities like Philadelphia and Scranton, has made waves. 

“Our effort was to provide drinking water that has zero lead, and the most feasible, cost-effective way to do that is to provide point-of-use filtration,” Manandhar said.

In the last eight years, Pittsburgh Public Schools has implemented lead-filtering bottle-filling stations and lead-filtering water fountains – after lead was identified in drinking water – across 70 buildings, for a total of nearly 1,300 fountains and filling stations. More than 2,400 filtering stations have been installed in Philadelphia schools and about 60 have gone into Scranton’s schools. 

The Shapiro administration sought to help schools by creating an additional funding channel last year – a one-time $75 million environmental remediation fund that allowed districts to apply for grants to reimburse their environmental fixes. 

The grant program, which offered an additional opportunity for school districts to apply for remediation-related grants, helped school districts install point-of-use water filtration systems and remove old carpeting – a breeding ground for mold – and asbestos flooring.

The School District of Philadelphia received the maximum grant amount – more than $7.8 million – while Pittsburgh Schools got $4.1 million and Scranton School District was awarded more than $825,000. Scranton also received a $1 million Public School Facility Improvement Grant for critical school safety upgrades and environmental remediation projects at West Scranton High School and South Scranton Intermediate School.

Even with such instances of increased funding, ongoing budget restraints continue to force school districts to perpetually shift their funding priorities; as Hill put it, “I’m robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

“There’s a budget deficit that not only the School District of Philadelphia is facing, but that is pervasive across public education, K-12 education institutions across the country,” Hill added. “The good news is that the district is fully committed to this, to the tune of $61 million annually.”

Clean record

Some school districts are well on their way to a clean record. But in others, the work has just begun. 

In conversations with City & State, district and environmental leaders agreed that should more dedicated funding appear, it would help not only with ongoing maintenance and remediation, but also keep districts from delaying already-overdue facilities projects. 

“We are experiencing budget shortfalls and issues, so (additional remediation investment) can definitely go toward helping other projects,” Manandhar said. “With inflation, costs keep going up … (and) spot removal costs versus the removal of an entire room over the long-term is not cost-effective.” 

School district leaders said consistent, dedicated funds, particularly to increase staffing and capacity to perform remediation, would keep district budgets open for other investments in learning and facilities. 

“It really causes a lot of cash flow challenges,” Laffey said. “If they got a dedicated stream or annual funding, and every year you’re going to get a set amount of money to perform this type of work, I think that would allow us to plan for these capital issues.”

At the same time, experts also realize that dollars aren’t enough; schools need efficient, forward-looking strategies for remediation. 

“The shiny object is always the funding side,” Masur said. “I tend to find school districts just don’t want to have that conversation. They don’t really want outside input on these cost-effective measures that can help them do triage until we get to properly funding our school infrastructure.”

Masur added that although many schools are a work in progress, transparency from district leadership around what’s going on and how dollars are being spent needs to be a top priority as well. 

“When the Eagles are in the Super Bowl, I get like five automated voicemails reminding me to make my kids wear Eagles green on Monday … but when you’re dealing with a known carcinogen around my kids, I can’t even get a formal letter sent home,” he said. “I’d invest in the people on the ground who are making sure the facilities are clean and running the way they have to, and give us the eyes and ears to figure out problems and address them quickly and early.”