As Summit Township Elementary School parents prepare to send their children to Broad Street Elementary School, a new report reveals that there still are unacceptable amounts of lead in Summit elementary’s water.

Butler School Board President Nina Teff said at an informational meeting for parents Wednesday that test results for lead showed a 30 percent failure rate.

The meeting was held at the Herman Volunteer Fire Company’s fire hall.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s limit for lead in water is 15 parts per billion by mass. If more than 10 percent of the water has 15 parts per billion by mass, the test has failed.

“The bottom line is the reason we have to get your kids out of that school is because the water just sucks,” school board member Leland Clark told parents.

The test results for copper have not come back yet. Summit elementary canceled classes for the week on Monday following test results that E. coli was in the school’s untreated well water.

Clark said sanitation studies need to be conducted to find out where the E. coli is coming from. He mentioned March 31 as a possible deadline to finish the studies.

These tests follow the announcement in January that the school’s water had contained unacceptable levels of lead, and that Butler School District officials have known about it since at least September.

State police in Butler are looking into the matter to see if criminal activity occurred at the school or the district involving the matter.

More than 100 parents attended Wednesday’s meeting. Questions were asked about Superintendent Dale Lumley’s involvement in the matter.

Carrie Collins of Herman is a parent of a Summit elementary student, and said she was told Lumley would not be involved in any Summit elementary water matters.

Collins said for Lumley to be involved in any such matters would be a “conflict of interest.”

District solicitor Thomas King declined to comment on Lumley, stating that it was a personnel matter and thus would be “inappropriate” to do so.

There is an online petition calling on Lumley to resign.

The petition, which is written as an open letter to Lumley, was posted by Summit Township resident Missie Carbin on Jan. 25 and has more than 900 signatures.

The letter alleges that Lumley knew about the high lead levels in August and did nothing.

“Our trust in you to protect our children has been irreparably and irretrievably broken,” it says.

Parents also wanted to know how the school district was going to prevent such a problem from happening again.

Clark noted the possibility of hiring a chief compliance officer, who would investigate mishandled matters personally.

Parents also voiced concerns about the readiness and safety of Broad Street Elementary School, which has been vacant since the school closed in 2015. Summit elementary students are set to begin classes there Monday.

Clark assured parents that Broad Street elementary kept the water running to keep the pipes from freezing while it was sitting empty.

William Pettigrew, chairman of the Summit water project team, commented on the progression of the school’s readiness.

“The maintenance staff and the cleaning crew is doing an excellent job,” he said. “It was in great shape. Everything was being cleaned.”

Other parents had concerns about Summit elementary being shut down permanently. The school board members in attendance said they were not in favor of that and it had not been discussed as a possibility.

“To take a community school away from a community, it would take a lot for me to say yes to that,” Teff said.