Yellow tape marks the drinking fountains in 30 St. Louis Public Schools as off-limits, denying students even a sip of water.
In the wake of the lead-poisoning crisis in Flint, Mich., this summer, officials here tested the water at their schools, many of them decades-old buildings in need of repair. Some, like Mann Elementary and Patrick Henry Downtown Academy, had results bad enough to necessitate an immediate shut-off of the drinking fountains; more than a dozen schools had at least one reading four or five times the readings recorded in Flint homes. The district shipped in bottled water. At other schools, like Gateway Middle, there was at least one test that exceeded the 10-parts-per-billion threshold set by the district, but administrators determined that there was enough clean water available elsewhere in the school to keep most of the taps running. At Gateway, teachers took matters into their own hands and are bringing bottled water in on their own.
[Watch: Flint mayor says city’s infrastructure is ‘broken’]
About 19 minutes away, at Reed Elementary School in Ladue, in the 63124 Zip code that often ranks as one of the wealthiest in the country, the water will be cold and clean. In fact, thanks to a “naming opportunities” initiative, the drinking fountain there might soon find itself inscribed with a generous donor’s name — a reminder to thirsty students that they live in a place where clean water is a privilege.