JHS on Track to Resume Classes Friday Despite Discovery of More Damage

By Jeremy Coumbes on January 4, 2023 at 2:49pm

Jacksonville High School is on track for students to return this Friday even after little more damage was found during the cleanup.

District 117 students returned to school after the holiday break Wednesday, save for at the high school where cleanup efforts continue after a pipe running to an outside spigot burst on Christmas Eve Day completely flooding the 200 hallway.

Yesterday, Superintendent Steve Ptacek announced that the high school start date needed to be pushed back to Friday, to give workers time to remove the carpeting in every classroom along the 200 hallway.

He says so far, good progress is being made in getting the classrooms ready for use. “Sablotny Flooring subcontracted out with a concrete company to come in and grind all the floors down, and then they will put a sealant down on top of those in preparation for new flooring hopefully sometime this summer.

At this point, the carpet has been taken out of all the rooms and several have already been ground down, and they are continuing to grind on those. We hope that maybe tomorrow we can start getting at least a couple of the rooms put together. I don’t know if they’ll be ready for Friday, but hopefully by next week at least some of the classrooms will be put together and students will be back in them.”

Not all of the news has been good at the school, however. Ptacek says some of the fixtures in each classroom will also need to be replaced. “ We are also adding into the insurance claim the cabinets that are in each of those classrooms. They’re made of pressboard and it didn’t take long for the bottom of those to start expanding, showing that just about all of the cabinets in that hallway have some permanent damage.”

Ptacek says the plan is to still have students return on Friday morning. Many of those who have classes in the 200 hallway will be forced to meet in an alternate class setting for the next week or so until all of the rehabilitation has been completed.