Schools keep working as St. Elizabeth has boil order

The St. Elizabeth R-4 School District is keeping its schedule this week, even though the town has a boil order at least through today.

"We were given notice by the city (last) Friday night that we would, more than likely, not have water on Monday," Superintendent Toni Westbrooks-Taylor said, "So we were very proactive in that."

With the heads-up, she said, the school district contacted local stores, "but they couldn't get the water to us as quickly as we needed it."

Based on guidelines that say the district needs three bottles of water for each student, teacher and staff person each day, Westbrooks-Taylor said - and a need to cover two days - the St. Elizabeth district contacted the Jefferson City Walmart Supercenter at 724 W. Stadium Blvd.

"They were fabulous to work with" and had the 2,000 bottles the district calculated it needed.

"We pulled a school bus up on Sunday night, and Walmart helped us load up the 2,000 bottles of water - and we delivered it (Monday) morning," Westbrooks-Taylor said. "We had the kids put them in the classrooms, and then went on about our business."

St. Elizabeth town officials didn't respond to phone messages seeking a comment on the situation.

The state Natural Resources department said they didn't issue the boil order, and didn't have details on why the city did.