"Danger: Learn At Your Own Risk"

"Many Philadelphia schools are incubators for illness, with environmental hazards that endanger students and hinder learning."

"Day after day last September, toxic lead paint chips fluttered from the ceiling of a first-grade classroom and landed on the desk of 6-year-old Dean Pagan.

Dean didn’t want his desk to look messy. But he feared that if he got up to toss the paint slivers in the trash, he’d get in trouble.

So he put them in his mouth. And swallowed them.

It wasn’t until Dean was hospitalized last November for severe lead poisoning that the School District of Philadelphia grew alarmed enough to finally fix the chipping and peeling paint in Room 202 at Watson Comly Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia."

Barbara Laker, Wendy Ruderman, and Dylan Purcell report for the Philadelphia Inquirer May 3, 2018 , with photos and video by Jessica Griffin.