They'll STAY Democrat if they keep drinking lead.

Portland Schools: Lead In The Water

Smith, reached by phone early Tuesday, says she knew nothing about any lead test results from 2010 to 2012, even though she was superintendent at the time. "Was I aware of it? No," Smith says.

Last week, Portlanders learned the Portland Public Schools had found elevated levels of lead in water at two schools in March, but failed to disclose this information for nearly two months. In the past few days, WW has learned and confirmed that PPS did tests across the district from 2010 to 2012—at 90 buildings—finding elevated levels of lead in the water at 47 of them... -Rachel Monahan Go To Site

Smith, reached by phone early Tuesday, says she knew nothing about any lead test results from 2010 to 2012, even though she was superintendent at the time. "Was I aware of it? No," Smith says.
Go To Site

Portland schools lead: Superintendent Carole Smith vows to 'take responsibility'

[Jul 2016]: Portland Public Schools students and parents, still reeling from the news that students have been drinking lead-tainted water, have received a personal apology from the district's top official... Since 2009, the district has found lead levels above the national benchmark in water from at least one drinking fountain at 51 schools. District officials have no record that fixes were made at five of those schools.

Portland Public Schools didn't label lead-tainted sinks out of fear people would panic

Portland Public Schools officials knew water from district's sinks was unsafe for drinking, but declined to place explicit warnings on the fixtures as early as 2012 because they worried people might panic. Emails released Monday shed light on how the district maintained a policy against letting students and staff drink from sinks but took pains to down play those concerns in communications with the public.

A copy of the proposed stickers, included in the emails, said simply this: "Do not drink water from this sink. Please use the drinking fountain." The stickers showed an image of a faucet with a cancel sign over it.

  Originally, the cancel sign was red. But officials worried the color red would be too alarming and had the stickers redone using black. When the color change still failed to soften concerns, the district decided it wouldn't post any warnings on sinks that might be lead-laced. -Bethany Barnes, Brad Schmidt Go To Site