SUMMIT TWP — A test conducted last week revealed E. coli bacteria in the untreated well water at Summit Township Elementary School.

The Butler School District announced Monday night that school will be canceled for the rest of the week. Teachers and staff at the school were instructed to not come to work on Tuesday and will be told where to report Wednesday.

Officials are hoping to close the school down for even longer and have students go to the vacant Broad Street School in Butler instead, said William Pettigrew, chairman of the Summit water project team formed last week to address high levels of copper and lead in the water.

The Butler School Board held an emergency meeting Monday night and directed officials to start working immediately on securing the necessary permits and permissions required to have students go to Broad Street School, which was last used by the district during the 2014-15 school year before it consolidated, closing several elementary schools.

The bacteria was found while engineers are conducting a battery of different water tests to try and identify problems with the water system there, Pettigrew said.

Pettigrew said that tests of water collected last week from inside the school tested negative for E. coli because the well water gets treated with chlorine.

“E. coli never got into the school’s system and in its sinks; the chlorination got it,” he said.

Water has been shut off to the building’s sinks and water fountains for more than a week, though the well water was still being used for toilets and urinals.

E. coli are a group of bacteria found in the environment, foods and the intestines of humans and animals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some strains of E. coli can cause diarrhea, while others cause urinary tract infections, respiratory illness and pneumonia.