POUGHKEEPSIE – Saying “children need safe water,” State Assemblyman Jonathan Jacobson (D, Newburgh), Monday, announced he has secured $50,000 from Albany to help fight lead contaminated water plaguing Poughkeepsie City School District facilities.
Jacobson, flanked by school board members, parents, students, and Guidance Counselor Franky Perez, stood by a covered, out-of-service water fountain at the middle school that has tested positive for lead contamination.
In his announcement, Jacobson said at the end of the session, he was able to secure the funding for remediation. “I couldn’t think of a better way for a school district to spend it. Children need safe water to drink.”
Perez is a member of the district’s ‘Wellness Committee’ and said he has been “on this mission for about three years now” and noted that over the last few years, more and more water fountains are out of service in the district. “The issue of hydration for me, as a wellness person, is very important. Our kids need water. Water is life. And to have a building with a thousand kids where we don’t have any water fountains that are working or that we can filter out some of the impurities in the water is just something that I’m very excited about and look forward to seeing our kids walking around with their water bottles.”
School Board President Dr. Felicia Watson said she met with Jacobson shortly after he took office and presented him with a “laundry list” of problems with which the school district needed help; one of those being the water woes. “You came through – you delivered!” Watson told Jacobson in the hallway of Poughkeepsie Middle School. School board member Deborah Long told Jacobson “we’ll be coming back for more.”
One of the parents in attendance pointed out a 2019 graduate of Poughkeepsie High School who was present at the announcement; Lamar Wint. He is credited with bringing the water fountain issue to the attention of the school board a few years ago when he was a track athlete. Wint said that he needed to drink a gallon of water a day and when the school district prohibited students from bringing their own water bottles, he was disappointed. He recalled filling a water bottle from a sink in the bathroom. “It was disgusting. When I turned the tap on, the water was red.”
Cornelia Harris has two children in Poughkeepsie schools and she serves on the Wellness Committee. Harris said that the plan is for each building in the district to receive at least one “water bottle filling-station/water fountain” on each floor of the building. “We need to encourage students to drink water and the water needs to be clean.”
