School water is generally treated to the same standards as any other tap water in the United States, but the pipes inside the building can introduce lead and other contaminants that the municipal supply doesn’t contain. The real risk isn’t usually the water coming from the city or town. It’s what happens after that water enters an aging school building and sits in old pipes, fixtures, and fountains.
Whether your school’s water is safe depends on the age of the building, the condition of its plumbing, how often the water is tested, and what your state requires. The answers vary dramatically from one school to the next.
The Lead Problem in School Plumbing
Municipal water systems are required to treat water to federal safety standards before it reaches any building. But lead can leach into water from older pipes, solder joints, and brass fixtures inside the school itself. This is especially true when water sits still in pipes overnight, over weekends, or during long breaks. The EPA’s testing protocol for schools calls for samples drawn from a cold water tap after 8 to 18 hours of stagnation, precisely because that’s when lead levels are highest.
A Government Accountability Office survey found that among school districts that tested their water, an estimated 37 percent found lead levels above their own threshold for taking action. That’s more than one in three districts discovering a problem once they actually looked for it.
The health stakes are real. Even low levels of lead in a child’s blood can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, lower IQ, decreased ability to pay attention, hearing and speech problems, and slowed growth and development. There is no safe level of lead exposure for children, which is why contamination in schools is particularly concerning.
Why Many Schools Go Untested
Here’s the gap most people don’t realize exists: the EPA does not have the authority to require most schools to test their water for lead. Schools are served by community water systems, and those systems must meet federal standards at the point of distribution. But the plumbing inside the school building falls outside that oversight. A 2016 to 2018 analysis identified only about half of states with any kind of program or policy addressing lead in school drinking water, and most of those programs were voluntary rather than mandatory.
New federal rules are changing this, but slowly. Under the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, community water systems must begin sampling at elementary schools they serve, starting in November 2027. The requirement phases in at a minimum of 20 percent of elementary schools each year over five years. Secondary schools (middle and high schools) only get tested on request. That means if no one at a high school asks for testing, it may never happen under these rules.
Even when testing does occur, the water system must report results to the school, local and state health departments within 30 days of receiving them, regardless of the lead level found. But interpreting those results and deciding what to do about them largely falls to the school or district.
Stagnant Water Makes Things Worse
Water that sits in pipes without moving creates several problems at once. Stagnation allows lead and copper to leach from plumbing materials in higher concentrations. It also depletes the disinfectant residual that keeps bacteria in check, and lets water temperatures drift into ranges that favor bacterial growth.
The CDC specifically flags stagnant water as a risk factor for Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease. Faucets and fountains that aren’t used regularly lose the protective chlorine residual that keeps pathogens at bay. Schools are especially vulnerable because of predictable periods of low or zero water use: summer vacation, winter break, spring break, and weekends throughout the year.
The EPA recommends that schools flush all water outlets used for drinking or food preparation after these periods of disuse. The protocol is more involved than just running the tap for a few seconds. For building-wide flushing, the recommendation is to open faucets at the point farthest from the service line on each wing and floor and let them run for 10 minutes. Individual drinking fountains without refrigeration should run for 30 seconds to one minute. Refrigerated water fountains need a full 15 minutes of flushing because the cold-water reservoir takes longer to cycle through.
Not all schools follow these protocols consistently, and there’s no federal requirement that they do.
PFAS and Other Contaminants
Lead gets the most attention, but it’s not the only concern. Research from Maine’s MDI Biological Laboratory found that schools themselves can be a source of PFAS contamination, the persistent “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, thyroid problems, and immune system effects. Schools have historically used PFAS-containing products including floor waxes, cleaning supplies, and even toilet paper. These chemicals can enter the local water supply through the school’s wastewater system.
Researchers were able to match chemical profiles of PFAS compounds found in residential drinking water wells near a high school to those found in the school’s wastewater. State data identified 56 Maine schools where PFAS levels exceeded federal standards. While this research focused on schools with septic or local wastewater systems common in rural areas, it highlights that contamination can flow in unexpected directions.
What You Can Actually Do
If you’re a parent or teacher concerned about your school’s water, the most important first step is finding out whether testing has been done. Ask your school administration or district facilities office directly: has the water been tested for lead, and what were the results? Community water systems are now required to share results with schools, so this information should be accessible. If testing hasn’t happened, you can request it from the water system that serves the school.
For individual protection, water filters certified to NSF/ANSI Standard 53 are designed to reduce lead to 5 parts per billion or less. Look for packaging that specifically states certification against NSF/ANSI Standards 42 and 53, with a claim of lead reduction. Standard 42 covers particulate filtration, while Standard 53 covers lead. Both certifications together provide the strongest assurance. These filters come in pitcher, faucet-mount, and bottle forms, any of which a student or teacher could use.
Simple habits also help. Running the water at a fountain or faucet for 30 seconds before drinking, especially first thing in the morning or after a weekend, flushes out the water that’s been sitting in contact with pipes. Always drink from cold water taps, since hot water dissolves lead from plumbing more readily. If your school has older fountains with visible corrosion or discoloration, avoid them entirely and use a filtered bottle instead.
Schools built before the mid-1980s are at the highest risk for lead in plumbing, since lead solder was common in construction before it was banned for use in drinking water systems in 1986. But even newer buildings can have fixtures containing small amounts of lead, particularly those installed before 2014 when the definition of “lead-free” was tightened to mean no more than 0.25 percent lead content.