DETROIT (AP) — Thousands of Detroit public schools students were told Tuesday to drink from district-supplied water coolers or bottled water on the first day of classes, after the drinking fountains were shut off because of contaminants in some water fixtures.
Test results are pending for other schools.
The discovery of contaminated water in Detroit’s schools follows a lead-tainted water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
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Eager to not undergo the same health and financial fallout as Flint, officials decided no students at Detroit’s 106 public schools should be subjected to drinking mains water until a solution can be found and the water declared safe.
But as parent Quala (KWAY’-luh) Bennett dropped two children off at Gardner Elementary Tuesday, she wondered why the district only recently began testing its water.
I don’t understand why now they’re checking the school system,” Bennett said.
And those issues should have been corrected by today.” Walton also said she reminds her grandson not to drink the water.
Ken Coleman, a spokesman for the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said the union would deliver bottled water and hand sanitizers to Noble Elementary-Middle School on Detroit’s west side Tuesday afternoon, and that more would be distributed to other schools later.
The American Federation of Teachers is providing the water and hand sanitizers.