Maggie Hicks (she/her)

Drinking water in Syracuse schools fails lead tests over and over. There’s a better way to keep kids safe In the latest testing, lead levels exceeded the state’s safe limit in fixtures at nearly every Syracuse school, records show.

Experts say there's a safer, cheaper solution that would only cost Syracuse half a million dollars to implement.

Read more from me and @mbreidenbach.bsky.social:

www.syracuse.com/news/2025/01...

The patchwork response leaves kids vulnerable in the years between tests. They're drinking from fountains and sinks that could have no traces of lead one year and outrageous levels the next. At least 76 fixtures that failed tests last year had almost no traces of lead in 2020.

It's impossible to know where the lead is coming from or how to get rid of it. The district will replace different parts of fixtures or install new ones a until the lead level is brought down. Sometimes, staff will change fixtures two or three times before they are safe to use.

Last year, one in ten water fountains and sinks in Syracuse schools had traces of lead that were above what's considered safe to drink. Water in some fixtures had lead that was more than 20 times the safety limit. One was 400 times higher. 🧵

We’ve Been Tracking Colleges’ Dismantling of DEI for 8 Months. Here’s What We’ve Found. While many changes have been made as a result of state-level directives, more colleges are eliminating diversity offices and staff even when they aren’t required to do so.

For @chronicle.com, @maggiehicks.bsky.social & I started tracked higher ed's dismantling of DEI in spring. @jasperjsmith.bsky.social & @christadutton.bsky.social continued the project.

After 8 months of work, here's a compelling analysis of what the data shows about the national DEI landscape.