School Board Trustee Patrick Gallagher, speaking from his flooded West Bay Street, said that the school board met with Superintendent David Weiss on Thursday afternoon to discuss the future of Long Beach Schools.
“They are hoping to get at least some of the schools up and running by maybe next Wednesday - optimistically,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher said that the superintendent plans to gather with all teachers on Monday at Lindell School or the high school.
“He will lay out his plan to them and once they understand what we’re trying to achieve, then we’ll announce whether we’re opening on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher said that the greatest challenge is trying to get in touch with people. So they have been communicating through Twitter.
Here are the conditions of each school building:
Long Beach High School is in “very good shape.” He said there were some broken windows on the side of the building from all the wind, and there was a little flooding in the gym.
“That’s minor compared to everything else that’s going on,” he said.
He also said a generator at the high school was compromised by water but that is expected to be fixed today.
The Blackheath Pre-K School, which is located on the same grounds as the high school, was completely destroyed and uninhabitable.
Lindell Elementary School is in “good shape.” The boiler in the basement was compromised with water, but all three floors above are fine and none of the new windows they installed were broken.
East Elementary School is in “pretty good shape” except for the gym, which has water intrusion.
Lido Complex -- which has the middle school and an elementary school and is undergoing reconstruction -- the new construction “is fine,” he said but the old buildings that they are replacing are in bad shape. They were flooded.
“Those buildings are not going to be ready for Wednesday.”
West School in the West End will also not be able to open next week. The first floor of the school was flooded, including the gym.
He said both the old Lido schools and West School might not reopen for another two to four weeks.
He said the plan is to make split sessions at the high school in which high school students will attend classes during the morning and middle school students during the afternoon.
- Lindell School can pick up all West School students.
- East School can pick up all other students.
There is talk of sending the pre-school students to the new classrooms at the Lido Complex; since it is in good shape and they will be moving there once construction is completed.
Editor Joe Kellard and reporter Joley Welkowitz are reporting from Long Beach.
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