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Wet desks make for optimal learning conditions?
Wilbur Cross English teacher Kim Anderson had hoped that her days of rearranging her classroom so that leaking ceiling water fell into a trash can instead of onto her students’ heads were over. Turns out, they weren’t.
Anderson discovered that fact at around 7 a.m. on Thursday when she arrived at her first-floor classroom, which faces the Orange Street side of the East Rock public high school. She saw that, while the school district had finally replaced the floor tiles that had been water-damaged for years, it hadn’t addressed the root cause — a ceiling leak.
As a result, Anderson’s new floors were drenched in rain water after overnight showers.
Those same floor tiles were replaced at the start of the school year, days after the Independent reported on Cross educators and staff preparing for students’ return while navigating the building’s decay. In September, both the Cross library and a music classroom were closed for more than a month due to airborne mold spores. Both have since been remediated and reopened.
“It is difficult to concentrate on the lesson when water is dripping into a large garbage can in the middle of the room. As teachers we are encouraged to provide high quality instruction, but how can this happen in poor quality conditions. The city needs to do better,” Anderson told the Independent.
Educators have advocated for better conditions for staff and students, notably by collectively speaking out at a September Board of Education meeting and demanding repairs to the city’s largest high school. While New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Madeline Negrón and facilities consultant Michael Carter have blamed understaffing and aging buildings, custodial union President Tom Delucia has pointed the finger at privatization of maintenance services. In November, the Board of Alders approved the transfer of $5.5 million to the school district for building maintenance costs.
On Sept. 24, district spokesperson Justin Harmon informed the Cross community that after carpenters and custodians replaced ruined floor and ceiling tiles like those in Anderson’s classroom, the district began “engaging an architect for a design recommendation to address the groundwater issues that have caused flooding in ground-floor classrooms. We will install insulation to protect from condensation on ceiling ducts, which caused ceiling tiles to mildew in a number of locations.”
Reached for comment on Thursday about Anderson’s classroom’s latest problems, Harmon said, “Repairs were made in October, which were intended to stop the leak. We had dry weather after that, and it may be that the recent rain is telling us that the leak wasn’t fixed. Or there could be another problem. The facilities team is gathering some intel on what may have happened and will respond ASAP.”
Harmon also previously said that the district continues to patch the portions of the Cross roof that are above occupied spaces. The roof won’t be replaced because it still has a useful life of about five more years.
As for other repairs, Harmon noted in the past that the district’s facilities and operations department installed a new HVAC system in the part of the building that includes the Cross childcare facility and is in the process of installing new controls for the system. Anderson’s classroom is a few doors away from the childcare center. Last month, Harmon also told the Independent that new floors for the Cross library may potentially be installed during the district’s winter break to replace current mold-prone carpeting.
Wet tiles in Anderson's classroom thanks to ceiling leak.