Lead paint may
uproot 500 kids
in Head Start

21 classrooms in state schools
may have lead paint hazards
that are costly to fix

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By B.J. Reyes
breyes@starbulletin.com

As many as 500 Hawaii children enrolled in federal Head Start preschool programs could be out of their classrooms this year because of potential problems with lead paint, an administrator said.

Roland Gella, director of the Oahu Head Start Program, said the state Department of Human Services has informed him of 21 Head Start classrooms that need to be inspected for lead paint hazards. The inspections, and any necessary corrections, are required to receive an operating license, a DHS official said.

At $300 to $500 per classroom, Head Start would not be able to afford the inspections and would have to close down the preschools, Gella said. If high lead levels are found in the paint, corrective procedures can run as high as $15,000 per classroom, he said.

However, because the 21 classrooms are located in state schools, Gella said the Department of Education should help pay for the inspections.

"If it's a state facility and we're both using it, it should be done by the state," Gella said, noting that in some schools, more classrooms than just the one being used for Head Start have potential problems.

"If I try to fix one room, and the next room is just as bad, we haven't solved anything," he said.

The potential problems should concern the DOE because the same classrooms used by 400 to 500 Head Start kids are also being used by elementary school students only a few years older, Gella said. DOE conducts periodic checks to ensure that lead paint does not pose a hazard in schools, most recently in 1998, said Randall Higa, safety and security specialist.

Making sure that schools meet safety standards "is an ongoing concern," DOE spokesman Greg Knudsen said. "If there are lead paint problems, they would have to be fixed. It wouldn't be a matter that would pertain only to the Head Start program."

Knudsen said he was unsure of what procedures Head Start would have to take if it wanted the DOE to help defray inspection costs.

"Perhaps all they need to do is contact us," he said. "I don't know what's on the record that might fulfill that purpose."

Gella said he had not contacted the DOE but did pass his concerns in a letter addressed to Gov. Ben Cayetano and sent to the state Office of Community Services. Mark Forman, OCS executive director, did not immediately return a telephone or e-mail message seeking comment yesterday.

DHS, which licenses preschools in Hawaii, conducts annual inspections to ensure that children are not exposed to paint that could contain high levels of lead, DHS Director Susan Chandler said.

"If we see paint that is chipping or deteriorating, we ask the child-care provider to get that tested to see whether or not it has lead in the paint, which then would be a risk to the children," she said. "If they do find that there's lead in the paint, and it's deteriorating, we ask them to do a corrective action so that the children don't have any exposure to the lead.

"If they correct it, then fine. If they don't or they can't, we will have problems licensing the program."

She added her agency deals only with preschool programs. "My understanding is that the DOE has its rules. We don't license the DOE; we license child-care programs."

Higa said he did not know offhand how the DOE's standards compare to those of DHS.

Gella said that by law, parents must be notified that their children's classrooms are being tested for lead.

Long-term effects of lead in a child include learning disabilities, decreased growth, hyperactivity, impaired hearing and even brain damage, according to the Web site of the National Safety Council. These effects can be limited by reducing exposure to lead or by medical treatment. Many buildings built before 1960, and some built as recently as 1978, are likely to contain heavily leaded paint, the safety group said. Young children often are exposed to the lead by chewing on paint chips.

Oahu Head Start, which receives federal funding to run preschool programs for lower-income families, serves about 1,700 children in 73 centers. About 50 of those centers are located on DOE campuses though Head Start does not always use the same classrooms every year, Gella said.