Pleasanton School Officials Defend Decision To Open School After Fire

PLEASANTON, CA — Pleasanton Unified School District maintained that it was following its safety protocols and the recommendation of the fire department when it decided to open school Monday morning after a fire, even though most of the campus was without power until about 11 a.m. In comments online, several families expressed doubts that the school was opened without power, ventilation, or WiFi, and felt that the school did not give enough advance notice that this was the case.

“The school should have been closed today! I picked up my son because he was just sitting in a cold, dark classroom with no power, heat or wifi and there was no learning happening today. Not to mention, the building that caught on fire was 100 years old and most likely had asbestos and lead paint…. Those particles were blown all over campus and our kids and the staff were breathing them. How is this safe?!” one parent wrote.

School officials said the gym was cordoned off for safety, and a safety inspector cleared the campus.

“As a standard safety precaution, PG&E shut down the power grid connected to Amador Valley’s small gymnasium at the time of the fire. This affected a majority, but not all, of the Amador Valley campus,” PUSD David Haglund said in an email to families Monday evening. “It took a bit longer than anticipated to restore power, as PG&E requires an independent building inspector to clear the location of the fire (in our case the small gym). Thankfully, we were able to bring a building inspector on site and PG&E began restoring power shortly thereafter. Power was fully restored to the entire Amador Valley campus before noon.”

“Our decision to keep school open was based on the fact that with the fire department's recommendations that we could provide a safe learning environment and that power would be restored to campus - this just took longer than anticipated due to the process needed to ensure power was restored safely,” district spokesperson Patrick Gannon told Patch in an email.

Gannon said that teachers were given the option to open doors and windows, or teach outside. The nutrition area was not impacted by the outage, and food service continued as usual. Students also had full access to bathrooms, he said.

The two-alarm fire broke out in the century-old gym at around 7:57 p.m. Sunday, and was contained in about 30 minutes. The cause remains under investigation.

RELATED:

• AVHS Small Gym Burns, School Loses Power, Small Trash Fire Confirmed