Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1530930
the district for failing to provide safe conditions for students. While a judge dismissed the lawsuit, district admin finally sent investigators to Stege over the summer, finding asbestos and other unsafe conditions. Officials abruptly closed the school and temporarily moved all students and staff to a nearby cam- pus, where similar conditions and issues exist, including a lack of access to drinking water for students. UTR leaders and its legal team are currently considering their next moves as the fight continues for the safe and healthy conditions Richmond students deserve. "We're definitely not done, and I feel like what we do next could create precedent in the state," says Cleare, noting that UTR leaders have visited more than 50 district schools to survey conditions. "Unsafe facilities are impacting our students. Many schools have classrooms where tempera- tures regularly reach the upper 80s and play areas without shade. Something has to change — it's absolutely unacceptable and illegal." Fighting for Lead-Free Water in Oakland Schools " This speaks to decades of disinvestment in public education. We're seeing a very tangible example of this disinvestment, which is the literal poisoning of our students and staff," says Ella Every-Wortman, eighth grade teacher and Oakland Education Association (OEA) site representative. "Our students deserve schools that are safe and racially just." On the first day of school this year at Frick United Academy of Language in Oakland, district officials learned that six water fountains used by students had unsafe levels of lead in the water, prompting the principal to bag all the school's drinking foun- tains. An eighth grade English teacher at Frick, Every-Wortman says that while this happened in August, the measurements were taken in April, which means that students were exposed to haz- ardous levels of lead for far longer than necessary. Every-Wortman, who uses they/them pronouns, says Oak- land Unified administrators stepped up testing aft er O E A push ed for more att ention to th e matter, with upward of 40 schools testing pos- itive for lead in drinking water — nearly half of the public schools in Oakland. OEA members learned that numerous sites districtwide expe- rienced del ays in repor ting simil ar to Frick — meaning that widespread numbers of Oak- land public school students were likely exposed to the toxic heavy metal. " We discovered that they didn't test ever y water source, so what about the safety of the sources they didn't test?" they ask. "ey're still not taking this issue seriously when it's obviously got potential impacts on the health of our students and staff." Like many schools in urban East San Francisco Bay communi- ties, Oakland has a substantial number of older school facilities that have not been modernized to ensure safety for stu- dents and educators. e older pipes and valves have lead Black mold inside classrooms in Richmond (left) led to one school's temporary closure, while lead rendered water undrinkable in some Oakland public schools. 17 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 5 Ella Every-Wortman