Pineridge students scatter to schools across the city

The recent fire at Pineridge elementary has proven to be more serious than first thought, as the three day holiday from classes has turned into a mass migration to the remaining west and east side schools.

Air quality concerns at Pineridge have forced School District 52 to relocate students of all seven grades to various schools around the district, making for a disruptive end to the school year for the west side school students.

Bus scheduling, classroom allocation and parental contact were all high on the agenda of last week with the anticipation of classes resuming on Tuesday.

The Daily News had many of the details of the forced cross city exchange as a front page story in Monday’s paper.

PINERIDGE FIRE FORCES KIDS TO NEIGHBOURING SCHOOLS
Student’s must finish their studies at Lax Keen, Westview and Roosevelt
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Monday, April 28, 2008
Pages one and three

Pineridge Elementary was eerily quiet on Friday as teachers finished packing their classrooms and School District employees arrived to begin the process of moving nine classrooms across the city.

The hasty arrangements were necessary after it was announced late Thursday that Pineridge will close its doors for the remainder of the school year due to air quality concerns following a staffroom fire on Tuesday.

Although the fire department was able to contain the blaze and extinguish it quickly, smoke spread through the building's ceiling cavity and was sucked up by the heating and ventilaiton system and distributed into all of the school's classrooms making the school unusable for the time being.

School District 52 has responded by putting together a plan that will move students and teachers to other elementary schools.

Four divisions of Grade 5, 6 and 7 students will be relocated to Westview; two classrooms of Grade 2, 3 and 4 students will move into Lax Kxeen; and Pineridge's three classes of Kindergarten to Grade 2 students will find themselves at Roosevelt for the remainder of the school year.

Teachers were working diligently last week to have their classroom materials packed at Pineridge, and since Friday afternoon have been preparing their new classrooms for students to arrive on Tuesday morning ready to learn. Pineridge Principal Darrel Wright said he was unsure what his role will be for the rest of the school year, but he said his only real concern was ensuring his students and their families were aware of everything that was happening and that their relocation goes smoothly as possible.

On Friday, Wright said he and school staff had made phone calls to all Pineridge parents alerting them to the situation and informing them of the plan, and he said he would be calling all families again on Monday.

A meeting was also schedule for Friday evening at 7 p.m. in the Charles Hays Secondary School Multi-Purpose Room, where Wright planned to explain the course of action that was being taken to parents; including busing plans, timelines, and how all the decisions were made.

"The staff at the receiving schools have been exceptional and very welcoming," said Bill Ford, the director of instruction for School District 52.

"This is a time when our school district really does us proud. They come together, are very supportive, and nothing has been a problem. The same goes for the staff at Pineridge who have been just awesome.

"They've hunkered down and done what they needed to do to get this move done, and really made lemonade out of lemons."