(Lake Park)– Wednesday was the first day back to school for students at Harris-Lake Park following last Friday’s boiler malfunction at the elementary school that resulted in those students being relocated to other facilities. Superintendent Mike Thompson says things went smoothly…
“A huge thanks to our parents and our community and of course, our staff, for making this a successful day back. The students were excited to be here, we were excited to see them and our pick ups and drop offs went very well. And even though we’re a little cramped here in the middle school/high school, we found spots for everyone and that with the Presbyterian Church, we couldn’t have asked for a better day.”
Thompson says the groundwork was already in place in the event something like this would ever happen…
“Yeah. 10 years ago the district went into an agreement with the Presbyterian Church to cover circumstances exactly like this, so. Church leadership there was great to work with and we’re just excited to be partnering with them.”
The agreement includes provisions for liability insurance and reimbursement for utility costs, among other things. Meanwhile, Thompson says damage assessments at the elementary are now underway…
“We’re still working through that process with Service Master. We’re in touch with our EMC insurance representative and I would say in the next week or so we’ll have a little better idea as to the scope there.”
Thompson says they are hoping to at least being able to once again use the gym at the elementary, which is in an area of the building that wasn’t as heavily damaged…
“We use the gym for our junior high basketball games so as long as we can get the heat back on and the water turned back on we’d love to use that facility again. That’s absolutely our goal.”
Thompson added it now appears they’ll be able to move into the new elementary building in a little more than a month from now…
“We’ve met with our Hoogendorn Construction representatives, our design firm. Everything looks like that could make that happen so that IS the plan moving forward and we’ll be sharing specifics with our community probably in a couple weeks as to what that looks like.”
That move originally wasn’t scheduled to happen until later in March.
Thompson gave the updates at a special school board meeting Wednesday evening.
