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Decatur’s College Heights school closed after boil water advisory lifted

Decatur

Decatur’s College Heights school closed after boil water advisory lifted

City Schools of Decatur Administrative Offices. Photo by Dena Mellick
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City Schools of Decatur Administrative Offices. Photo by Dena Mellick

City Schools of Decatur Administrative Offices. Photo by Dena Mellick

Decatur’s College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center is closed today, July 28, “due to water safety concerns expressed by the DeKalb County department of watershed management.”

Those concerns were related to a boil water advisory that the county lifted after 5 p.m. on Monday, July 27. The alert went out to parents of College Heights students before the boil water advisory was lifted. Some parents asked Decaturish why CSD decided to keep College Heights closed after the county declared the water safe to use. The school has a reported enrollment of 342 students and students range in age from infant through Pre-K.

“The advisory wasn’t released until after the decision was made,” Superintendent Phyllis Edwards said via email. “We were also told that we would need to go through extensive cleaning and preparation.”

The county said samples of the water showed no signs of bacteria and the advisory was precautionary. Decaturish asked who informed CSD it would need to clean College Heights.

“I am sitting here with Allison Goodman, who is responsible for food service,” Edwards said. “She had a major conversation with the Health Department about what we needed to do in order to make everything safe for the children. I made the call so that we could be sure that children were protected. We had made provisions to bring in water, serve on paper product, shut down the water machines and so on. However, it is incredibly hard it is to clean babies and clean surfaces. I always err on the side of the students.”

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