Water fixtures at Bainbridge public schools that have recently shown elevated levels of lead could be safe to use as soon as Jan. 25, if test results can confirm that they provide a clean drink.

Dane Fenwick, facilities director of the Bainbridge Island School District, presented the school board Jan. 8 with lead-testing results from Commodore Options School, the last BISD campus to receive assessment and remediation.

Per the tests, conducted Nov. 15, five water fixtures at Commodore contained five or more parts per billion (ppb) of lead, including one fixture with 18 ppb of lead in the 200 wing of the building.

“Our maintenance staff were deployed immediately to shut off the fixtures and begin the filter installation, and/or fixture replacement. I am happy to report that we are confident in the strategies we’ve employed to reduce the lead contaminant in our water supply and at our outlets,” said Fenwick.

Since the presence of high lead levels was discovered in late November 2025, maintenance and facilities staff have disconnected or added filters to dozens of water sources on BISD campuses, including drinking fountains, sinks, dishwashers and spigots. Staff then collected another round of tests from the affected water sources, following remediation, to check if the strategy was sound.

“Just to try and clarify for myself: back in November, we got the results that there could be fixtures that had issues. We turned off everyone that we thought had an issue, we put filters on everything, we tested everything, and we got those tests back,” said school board director Evan Saint Claire, addressing Fenwick at the Jan. 8 meeting. “Stuff that still had an issue, even after the filters were placed, we have a new remediation plan for them. We’re gonna test how well that works, we’re going to check if the tests are okay, then we’re going to continue using them. If they don’t work, or if they’re testing back high again, we’re going to turn them off and further remediate until we have test results that we approve of.”

Fenwick confirmed Saint Claire’s summary.

“We don’t consider ourselves done just because we’ve done a filter. We have to have the good filter plus a good test,” added Fenwick.

The next round of water testing will occur Jan. 25 at 8:45 a.m., starting at Bainbridge High School, Fenwick said. If any drinking water fixtures show below 5 ppb of lead, they will be reactivated; those that still have elevated lead levels will be replaced; those that have already been replaced and still have high levels of lead will be gutted to replace the plumbing, Fenwick explained.

Commodore, which houses nontraditional education pathways like Eagle Harbor High School, the MOSAIC program and Odyssey, operates in one of the oldest buildings in the district, built in 1948. Along with Ordway Elementary School, Commodore was flagged by the state for $2 million in seismic safety upgrades in 2021, which were completed in August 2025.

During the state-led round of lead testing in 2020, Ordway showed 15 contaminated water sources out of 19 total on BISD campuses. The district’s November 2025 round of lead testing showed six contaminated fixtures at Ordway.

However, Fenwick said, if the elementary school’s most recent results are any indication of the efficacy of his teams’ remediation response, “we’re highly confident with the strategy we’ve chosen.”