PITTSBURGH — A lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday hopes to hold the Butler School District and its former superintendent accountable for allowing students at Summit Township Elementary School to be exposed to lead.

The lawsuit, which is intended as a class-action suit, was filed by attorneys with Dallas W. Hartman P.C. and Meyers, Evans, Lupetin and Unatin on behalf of district resident Jennifer Tait, whose daughter attends Summit school, and “all other similarly situated individuals.”

Samples taken from the school on Aug. 15 tested for unsafe levels of lead and copper, though parents of the school’s children were not notified by the district until Jan. 20 and the water remained in use until then.

The state Department of Environmental Protection requires any school with 10 percent of water samples containing 15 parts per billion of lead or more to notify the public and initiate an action plan to correct the problem.

The district’s delayed response, and the effects that it had, are the basis of the suit’s claims.

“One claim is negligence and another is medical monitoring. We are seeking to compel the school to provide more extensive medical treatment and testing,” attorney Brendan Lupetin said in an interview.

The attorneys also claim that the defendants have violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees residents “the right to bodily integrity.”

The complaint alleges that district officials ignored test results in August that indicated unsafe levels of lead and copper in the building’s drinking water.

“The Defendants in concert with the defendant district’s maintenance director made a conscious and intentional decision to neither warn the students of this dangerous condition nor take any appropriate steps to fix the dangerous condition,” it reads.

Citing articles in “Journal of Pediatrics” and “Reviews on Environmental Health,” it states that the defendants knew, or should have known, that exposure to lead can cause irreversible effects to the central nervous system in children and has been shown to lower the IQ in children.

The complaint does not give a specific dollar amount that the plaintiffs will seek in damages.

The next step in the process would be for the school district’s legal representation to file a response to the complaint.

District solicitor Tom King, who had no knowledge of the suit until it was filed Tuesday afternoon, declined to comment.

A federal judge will eventually rule whether the suit will be a class-action claim.

The class would potentially include all the students who attended the school this year, teachers and anyone else who would have visited the building, Lupetin said.

District employees that were exposed to lead at the school may be covered by workers’ compensation, which might exclude them from the class, he said.

The school this year has 260 students and the complaint states that the intended class is believed to be “well over 200 persons.”

If it becomes a class-action suit, all members of the class would be notified and would have the ability to opt-out, allowing them to pursue their own lawsuit if they choose, he said.

Dr. Dale Lumley, the district’s superintendent since 2014, resigned from his position with the intention to retire on Sunday.

Though the building’s water still contains lead according to recent test results, Summit students started attending Broad Street Elementary School in Butler on Monday. That school closed in 2015.