For your awareness, our Buildings & Grounds team discovered early this morning, April 20, that a water pipe burst — most likely late last evening —- in the Otisville Elementary kindergarten wing. As soon as this was discovered, remediation work immediately began. This also includes using the services of a professional remediation company which specializes in this type of clean-up work. As of this writing, this work continues.
The clean-up work is extensive. For the next few days, eight classrooms in the kindergarten wing will be relocated to other areas of the building. The teachers in the affected classrooms have been notified. They, like me, want to assure you that instructional day for the classrooms impacted will not be affected. Teachers will make sure all students are comfortable in their temporary classrooms.
The impacted classrooms are:
Kindergarten classrooms: Ms. Galligan, Ms. Kahn/Ms. Ferguson and Ms. Hewlett
Second-grade classroom: Ms. Martinez
Special Education classrooms: Ms. Muccari, Ms. Buchler and Ms. Assaiante
AIS Reading: Ms. Nadler
We never like to see these things happen, but we always have plans in place to implement in instances like this. These plans are designed to ensure continuity and minimal disruption in academic instruction. I want to offer my gratitude to Nick Tranchina and the incredible Buildings & Grounds team of Chris DeGrote, Joey Palazzo, Dennis Devine, Scott Tonnessen, Marty Anzalone, Jade Munday, Curtis Hossann and Joe Wickham for their immediate attention to this issue; and to Principal Julia Downey and Assistant Principal Nikachi Griffin for their equally quick response. We are very fortunate to have such dedicated people addressing and resolving an unexpected issue like this, particularly on a major holiday.
For now, we expect these temporary classrooms to be in place until at least midweek. If necessary, I’ll reach out with any updated information.
I hope you and your family had an enjoyable Spring Break, and we look forward to seeing everyone back in class tomorrow morning, April 21.
Sincerely,
Brian C. Monahan
Superintendent