FLINT, MI — Flint Community Schools officials will ask "critical community and corporate partners" to supply district buildings with water jugs to start the 2018-2019 school year.
"The district has secured funding for clean drinking water through the fall of 2018," Board of Education President Diana Wright said in an email statement to MLive-The Flint Journal.
Clare Liening, a spokeswoman for the district, said the plan is to use water jugs, secured from donations, next year "until the district and its partners deem the water to be safe for drinking."
Flint students have been supplied bottled water since before the city’s water crisis was federally recognized as an emergency in January 2016, and it has relied on bottled water donations from corporations including Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nestle Waters and PepsiCo.
In April, the state Department of Environmental Quality reported its most recent testing from FCS buildings showed more than 4 percent of water samples had elevated levels of lead.
Tiffany Brown, a spokeswoman for the DEQ, said testing is continuing in Flint school buildings and updated information is expected to be released in late July or early August.
Brown said water fountains and water coolers in city schools have been replaced with materials that are compliant with the 2014 lead-free standards, including materials going all the way back to shutoff valves.
The school district has been flushing its water lines for 5 minutes a day since May, according to the DEQ.
The flushing is intended to get fresh water to all parts of the building so that the orthophosphate can coat the pipes."
FCS turned off tap water for students during the water crisis, and 2015 testing showed toxic lead levels at faucets and drinking fountains in multiple buildings.