If you can’t drink the water at school, what hope is there?

There’s arsenic in the drinking water at Lyman Elementary School.

When our oldest first enrolled in kindergarten two years ago, we received a notice that the arsenic levels were too high so we needed to pack our daughter her own drinking water. Now we have two children in the school and the conditions are still the same. When I was at their end-of-year music showcase, there were signs on faucets letting everybody know that the water was not drinkable.

Our youngest students in the preschool are three at the beginning of the year (they have to turn four by Oct. 15). The voting taxpayers of our town, as well as Maine state officials, have decided that they are fine with arsenic drinking water for, essentially, toddlers. At least they tested and let the parents know to pack our own water, right?

Let me clear: Our school is fantastic – because of the people who run it. I couldn’t ask for better teachers, techs or school leadership. Our school was built in 1979, food insecurity for families has skyrocketed, and these miracle workers of educators show up every day for children aged between three and 11, roughly, and have them reading, doing math, getting creative with science lessons and exploring social studies. I would love them to give them a building that doesn’t become dangerously hot on summer days … and that has potable drinking water.

The state seems to have grand plans to increase our town population. I have more than a few questions about this such as: On whose land? Did you ask the people living here? And a friendly reminder that tearing down the trees and filling in the wetland continues to exacerbate the global climate change and destruction of the very earth we expect our kids and grandkids to live in. To quote my oldest child: “If that is what the future looks like, I don’t want any part of it.”

But I’ll stick here to education here. Which leads me to the questions: Where are you going to educate the new kids in our community? In an outdated building that’s already pretty much at maximum capacity? With arsenic drinking water? And a dearth of bus drivers? Where exactly do you plan to educate the influx of children, when we can’t even seem to get the funding to build a decent school building with drinkable water for the kids already here?

There’s arsenic in the drinking water at our elementary school. If we have any credibility as a society responsible for the health and welfare of those not yet old enough to advocate for themselves, we need to make fixing that our top priority. Not destroying even more of our natural environment.

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