Prince George's County parents want public schools to supply more safe water fountains

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. (7News) — 7News wants to know why it's taken Prince George's County Public Schools 19 years to supply safe, lead-free, and filtered water at fountains on each floor of its schools.

"This is a chronic problem. They started a lead remediating program in 2004 and they said they had finished all their steps in their strategic plan in 2018 - and here we are in 2023 and the schools do not have filtered water," says Christina Toy who has a student attending classes.

Since 2019, every school has been provided at least one filtered water fountain with a bottle fill, district officials told 7News. That's at least one filtered water fountain at each of its 200 schools with roughly 131,600 thirsty students combined...

Prince George's County parents want public schools to supply more safe water fountains | WJLA

MCPS Math: $3.7M + $1.3M = $4.9M Do The Math. It Means MCPS had to Pay $161K for the MSI Artificial Turf Fields

Let us start with a bit of history.

Montgomery Soccer, Inc. (MSI Soccer) sued the Montgomery County Board of Education because they said the MCPS Bid Process was "highly irregular and rife with conflicts of interest, false statements..."

The case did not go to a trial, instead the Board of Education reached an out of court settlement with MSI Soccer that gave MSI Soccer the use of 3 school fields in exchange for MSI Soccer paying for the installation of artificial turf at each of those schools.  

On May 2, 2017, the Montgomery County Council approved the appropriation of a $4.9 million contribution from MSI Soccer to pay for the 3 artificial turf fields.  

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/COUNCIL/Resources/Files/res/2017/20170502_18-787.pdf

On April 24, 2018, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved a contract for the installation of the artificial turf football field at Whitman High School.

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/AXVPH464979A/$file/Award%20Cont%20Install%20Turf%20Walt%20Whtiman%20HS.pdf

On June 12, 2018, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved a

contract for the installation of artificial turf fields at Einstein High School and

Julius West Middle School. 

https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/AZEH84473086/$file/Award%20Cont%20Turf%20Install%20Julius%20West%20MS%20Albert%20Einstein%20HS.pdf

Now do the MCPS math:

$1,344,000 + $3,717,579 = $4,900,000

If that doesn't add up then that means that the Board of Education had to kick in $161,579 to pay the difference between what MSI Soccer contributed to these fields and the actual cost of installing these 3 plastic fields. 

Didn't the Board of Education just vote to not install water bottle filling stations at all middle and high schools because they had to make "trade offs" in the budget and they couldn't afford the $200,000 for the water stations?  

Here's the trade off:  Artificial turf for MSI Soccer instead of water bottle filling stations at middle and high schools. 

Board of Ed. Finds $1.3 Million +/- for Another Artificial Turf Football Field #InTheMoney #Cash #NoMoneyforCleanWater

Overcrowded classrooms? School building in need of repairs? Lead in the school's water?  

Those aren't issues that the Board of Education is concerned about.  Instead, the Board of Education is busy using education budget funding to pay for more new artificial turf football fields.  Here's another one going in at Kennedy High School.  The plastic football field is being added along with an addition to the school.

From the Planning Board Mandatory Referral memo linked below we learn that this project includes:

Replacement of the existing natural grass stadium field with an artificial turf.

https://montgomeryplanningboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/A_Mandatory-Referral-MR2020010-JFK-HS-Staff-Report-FINAL.pdf