DETROIT – The water safety concerns at the Detroit Public Schools Community District were made public less than a week ago, and Tuesday, students will come face-to-face with the shutoff for the first time.
About 50,000 students from the district will start the new school year Tuesday morning. There's concern for parents about the water at the schools. All the water fountains and sinks in Detroit public schools will be shut off because of elevated levels of lead and copper.
Not all the test results are back, but enough showed elevated levels of lead and copper that the district decided to act.
"Out of an abundance of caution, and not needing, in my opinion, to wait for the test results at the other schools, we made a decision to turn off the drinking water at all of our schools and move to water bottles and water coolers," DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said.
Many schools will provide coolers and bottled water for students, which will be expensive for the school district. Some parents will send their children to school with their own water supply.
"They're actually going to be bringing bottled water with them just for any safety precautions because we don't know the actual particulars of everything, but we want to make sure they're prepared," mother Terry Hopkin said.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department said the water going to the schools meets all safety standards. The problem is the water pipes and fixtures at the schools, which run on old and outdated plumbing.
Given what happened to the city of Flint, it's hard for parents not to worry.
"I'm kind of nervous ever since the Flint situation," mother Karen Reed said. "You never know when somebody's water is bad and when it's not."