After almost a month of complications due to flooding, teachers are finally back in their classrooms. On Nov. 3-4 it rained almost ten inches. Due to South’s old exterior, multiple classrooms within the school experienced water damage.
Assistant Principal Eric Wilhelm handles all of the building’s construction matters and gets reports from teachers when they have building problems in their classrooms.
“The first report of water damage came in sometime Monday the 4th after it rained for 36 hours,” said Wilhelm.
The reports continued coming in that week. The rain damaged Laura Eckelkamp and Jennifer Berger’s rooms on the third floor of the science area, and Mitch Stevens’ classroom on the second floor of the history wing.
Stevens said he noticed a mildew smell in his room and saw the water.
“There was water on the south exterior wall, back of the room,” said Stevens
One of his students, junior Sam McHale said she also noticed a smell as soon as she walked into class and even stepped in the water.
“There was a strong mildew smell. Also, there was a puddle near the wall. I stepped in that area and it splashed,” said McHale.
This affected classes and students’ learning because they couldn’t be in their classes due to possible mold growth. Also, fans to dry up water caused too much noise.
“We had to temporarily move to another location while they were cleaning. The fans were way too loud,” said Stevens.
Some teachers were affected a few days after the rain. The water took longer to get to the science classrooms because it was not on the exterior walls. This was the case for Eckekkamp, who was greatly affected by the water damage.
“It was really difficult to not have a lab space. Also, not having a seating chart or a phone drawer made classroom management harder,” she said.
Junior Ava Bucher, who has Eckelkamp for Chemistry, agrees that the damage made class a lot harder.
“Class was different because we weren’t in the classroom, due to the fan noises. Since we were in the library classroom or just a physics classroom, we couldn’t get our papers that were in the classroom or do some of our activities,” Bucher said.
Wilhelm says the school has plans not only to get rid of the water damage now but also to prevent it from happening in the future.
“The district has a heavy-duty sealant for the exterior panels, which have cracked over time since they’re old. As for the classrooms, we dried out the water with fans and we used an anti-mold cleaner on the carpeting. We also did testing for any mold. If there was any mold, the school district would take out any affected areas to get rid of it. It’s a long process for mold testing and it costs $2,000 for each classroom,” Wilhelm said.
Some teachers, like Stevens, were back in their rooms within a week. For others, it was over a month-long process of moving to new locations each day while their rooms were being restored.
“It’s very lovely to be back in my class. It has made my week great,” Eckelkamp said.
