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Interior settled dust is one of the greatest threats of potentially toxic metal(oid)s (PTMs) exposure to the children, especially in the school environment. Therefore, it is more worthy of having in-depth knowledge of compositional characteristics of school dust. Forty schools were selected of Lahore city for dust sampling. The school dust was analyzed to determine the PTMs (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ge, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Sn, Sr, V, and Zn) concentrations using ICP-MS. The morphological characteristics, PTMs speciation, and mineralogy of school dust were examined using SEM with EDS, XPS, and XRD, respectively. Moreover, the geo-accumulation index (I_geo), potential ecological risk index (PERI), and multivariate statistical analysis were employed to assess the pollution levels, ecological risk, and source identification of PTMs, respectively. The I_geo indicated a heavily-extreme pollution level of Cd (I_geo = 4.92), moderate-heavy …