As the Prince George's County school system prepares to build six new schools in three years under a public-private partnership, questions surround who's building the schools and how workers are being compensated.

Lanham-based DC Plumbers Local 5 is one of many trades asking the Prince George’s County Council to hire union on construction projects.

“We’re not advocating so much for the union workers; we’re advocating for workers, period,” said T Smalls, who represents the union.

New majority on the Council is requesting a labor project agreement ensuring a percentage of county workers are hired and that the construction jobs are union.

“Our residents have health care benefits, retirement and things that most people take for granted,” Council member Ed Burroughs said.

The move caused backlash. Almost 50 Black businesses signed a petition saying they're concerned their construction companies tend to be smaller and some don't have union affiliations.

“There's just institutional barriers and challenges of things that have been in place for years and years that minority small businesses, new businesses, have to overcome, and that's what this creates – more of those barriers,” Warren Builds President and CEO Shane Warren said.

Lead exposure can have serious health consequences for children, but only a fraction of Georgia schools have signed up for a free testing program. Advocates worry school leaders are worried about the cost and consequences of discovering lead in their water systems, which the state has not provided funding to address. In July 2021, the Georgia Department of Education announced a new initiative to provide free funding and resources for schools across the state to test their drinking water for lead. At its launch, the “Clean Water for Georgia Kids” program, administered by RTI International, a North Carolina nonprofit, aimed to test “up to 800” schools during its first year.
More than a year later, just 96 schools and day cares have enrolled in the program, and 82 have completed testing — a small fraction of Georgia’s more than 2,300 schools and 3,100 day cares. In a meeting on Dec. 8, Georgia’s state Board of Education voted to renew RTI’s contract for the testing program. The Georgia program’s underenrollment stands in stark contrast to the successes of the pilot program on which it was modeled. In North Carolina, from June 2020 to September 2021, RTI International succeeded in testing lead levels at every operating day care in the state. Schools were not included.