By LAUREN BENYAMEN, SYDNEY CHEN, GRACE GAGLIANO, SUNNY KAMADJEU, JANICE KWON, KATHERINE LEE, MATTHEW WEISSMAN, ANNIE ZHOU and SARA ZIMMERMAN
The Jericho Middle School/High School campus was closed for five days around the Thanksgiving weekend due to a flood which damaged electrical panels leaving the campus without water, heat or power.
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, custodian Roberto Ayubo, who is responsible for opening the building each day, noticed that the fire doors were closed–a sign that meant that the power must have gone out at some point overnight. Head custodian of the school’s campus Scott Gray explained that after Mr. Ayubo informed other custodians, they looked around and discovered some power outages around the campus, but not a complete blackout.
What first appeared to be random and minor power outages in the building, turned out to be a major problem that closed school for five days.
Photo courtesy of junior Kristen Counsell.
Superintendent Mr. Hank Grishman was informed and he notified High School Principal David Cohen at around 7:18 a.m. Mr. Cohen began investigating the situation since his office did have power, but other parts of the building did not. As he left his office, he came upon custodians who seemed somewhat stunned since they had just discovered seven feet of water in the school’s sub basement.
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Mr. Grishman explained. “There was a cold water, high pressure water pipe that failed sometime overnight into Tuesday morning,” he said.
That pipe caused the flood which led to damage of electrical panels stored in the sub-basement and the loss of power.
Immediately, the main water supply was shut and PSEG was notified of the problem. They then shut the main power feeding the campus. Assistant Superintendent for Businesses Victor Manuel said, “Once the water was shut at that point, there were no bathrooms available for anyone in the high school or middle school and we quickly made the decision at that time to send the middle school kids home and start assessing what the damage is and how that’s going to look going forward.”
At around 8:00 a.m, a robocall was sent out to all students announcing that school was canceled for the day. This stopped more students from entering the building, but something now had to be done with the middle school students, since school was already in session for them and the few high school students who had arrived early.
Mr. Cohen made an announcement over the public address system that all students and staff should report to the auditorium. Once gathered, Mr. Cohen informed them of the school closing and how they would get home. Students could contact their parents for pickup or they could take a bus.
English teacher Ms. Muscarella who was at school early that day said, “All the students were called to the auditorium and I waited for them and chatted with some of the students that I knew. They handled everything really well and students were able to go home really fast.”
Parent-teacher conferences were scheduled for Tuesday night. At first Mr. Cohen thought they would have to be canceled. However administrators agreed to run parent-teacher conferences online. Mr. Cohen was proud of how well everyone was able to modify their plans. He said, “Parent-teacher conferences were remote. It was very difficult, but they did it. The pandemic helped with the shift.”
Since Wednesday was already scheduled as a parent-teacher conference day, students did not have classes. This allowed electricians, custodians and insurance company representatives to work double shifts in hopes of reopening school on Monday.
By Saturday Mr. Manuel and Mr. Grishman realized that the campus would not be ready for in-person learning after Thanksgiving weekend, and that school would be remote the following week. Mr. Manuel said, “I think we made the final decision on Saturday morning to call and announce that we’re going to be out Monday through Wednesday.”
Crews worked throughout the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and the following week to restore power to the building.
Jericho High School students had mixed feelings about the campus closure. Some students felt online learning was enjoyable. Freshman Jacob B. said, “I like having remote learning for short periods of time because it is very relaxing to be in the comfort of my home.”
Freshman Sandra C. had mixed feelings about remote learning. She said, “I was happy about it because I really wanted an extra break, but I was worried because I had a lot of tests that week.”
While online learning gave students and teachers a sense of relaxation, they overall agreed that they preferred learning in person. Freshman Jinglan C. said, “It was nostalgic in a bad way to go back to online learning because I didn’t like the environment.”