A flood at Connaught Elementary School in North Battleford closed classes down for two days recently, and the Living Sky School Division board of education has commended the school staff and division maintenance staff for their response.
Lonny Darroch, chief financial officer for the division, told board members last week a sprinkler line broke sometime in the night before Friday, March 6. The school had to be closed that day and again on Monday, but it appears division staff pulled out all the stops to get the school open again Tuesday.
A division crew was on the scene Friday, as were the school staff.
“They were there all day Friday squeegeeing the water out of their classrooms into the hallway,” said Darroch, and a vacuum truck was there to suck the water up.
An insurance adjustor visited the site Monday with a moisture tester to identify where the drying needed to take place and the health inspector has been in as well, he said.
Blowers were brought in to dry things out, because the water had penetrated up to six inches off the floor onto the drywall.
The board doesn’t anticipate a problem with mould since the leak has been stopped.
“We’re assuming it was a condensation drain in the attic that we weren’t aware was there, and it broke,” said Darroch. It has now been extended down to where it’s warm enough that it can’t freeze again.”
The sprinkler system was replaced about two years ago.
Board members said, in addition to thanking the maintenance staff, the staff at Connaugbt need to be thanked – with more than a note.
The board decided they would deliver a thank you lunch to the school.
It’s not the first time Connaught School has had to sluice water out of their hallways.
A malfunction of the sprinkler line caused flooding at the school in March of 2012.
Early in January of 2014, it was déjà vu when alarms began ringing at the school about 4:15 p.m. A large amount of water had flooded one classroom and a hallway.
Firefighters, four of whom responded to the call, shut down the sprinkler system and Modern Janitorial and River City Plumbing were called in to deal with the aftermath.
Bomb Threat
In other local school news, a bomb threat against North Battleford Comprehensive High School has been investigated by RCMP.
In his report to the Living Sky board of education, Director of Education Randy Fox said the threat was made via text messaging. The RCMP investigated and advised the division that they did not see the threat as serious, said Fox.
There were a number of students involved in this, said Fox, and school administration has followed up with them. It was one particular student among them who was texting the threats.
Fox said it came to light when a parent saw a text on her son’s phone regarding the threat of a bomb at NBCHS and called the RCMP.
“You never know these days,” said Fox. “It’s good that they followed it up.”
No Terrorism Insurance
At last week’s meeting, Living Sky School board members received a letter from the Saskatchewan School Boards Association regarding insurance in light of terrorism threat.
The letter was sent out in response to a number of school divisions who planned to send cheer teams to a competition at West Edmonton Mall, which has been mentioned as a potential target of terrorism.
The letter, prepared by Dave Jackson, director of legal service, insurance and risk management for the SSBA, said from an insurance perspective, “terrorism exclusions” have been widely incorporated into most insurance policies since 2001.
Whether or not students travel to venues under threat is a risk management decision to be made by division boards.
