Friday, February 4, 2011

School Evacuation Update

An EYE reporter just met with Dr. Frechette and other school officials at the Front Office (no BOE members were present at the meeting). Here's a summary of the information learned at that meeting:

When the heat was turned on this morning at Moody and Bielefield, some horizontal shifting of roof ice and snow occurred. This in turn caused the appearance of drywall cracking, and so both elementary schools were evacuated as a precaution. There was no evidence of structural issues, but extreme caution was exercised and the children were evacuated. A Honeywell Alert was sent out to both groups of parents, notifying them what happened.

Between the 11 school buildings in the district, there are one million square feet of roof to clear. The District has hired Turner Construction to remove all the snow and ice. Work started today on Woodrow Wilson, and all buildings will be cleared by Monday morning, even given the snow expected over the weekend. The BOE has also reached out to the National Guard for additional assistance in snow clearance. This request is still pending.

To repeat: according to school officials, there was no significant danger to students today. The evacuations were conducted out of extreme caution for student safety. Should any new developments occur over the weekend, official school news updates are available here.



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So this will be coming from the school budget correct? any city side workers paid by BOE right?

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the update!!!

I can't help but wonder why they didn't think to clear off the school roofs last week...or when they were empty this week. The Governor has been warning us for weeks that flat roofs are in danger and should be cleared off.

Anonymous said...

way to waste money I'm sure the community would have helped clear the roofs and rallied together. Especially since everthing is being slashed out of the budget. Also was this contract done legally through a bid knowing Turner was charging $500 just for a residential roof

Anonymous said...

I find it frustrating that the Central office building was cleared of snow today but most of the schools have not yet been cleared. I am saddened to know how the administrators in this district prioritized this situation.

Anonymous said...

really parents would have cleared roofs? hard to believe when most find it difficult and time consuming to even sign a permission slip on time. another frechette blunder to to the admin building before the kids

Anonymous said...

No one cares about the crack at down the cafeteria wall WWMS because the principal is an architect and he redesigned the cafe himself without it going out to bid. Then when that "electrical" fire happened no one paid attention because it was work that was never made public or even inspected by the City ( cause they didn't know about it until the electrical fire) but was approved by Frechette. Frechette then did not have the work go out to bid- get it now??? Fuggettabout cause this will probably be deleted.