Two months after a roof collapse in the multi-purpose room of Waggoner Elementary School, community members had an opportunity to receive some answers.
Tuesday at Kyrene district offices, the School Board held a meeting which was intended to inform the public and provide an understanding in terms of what exactly caused the collapse. Experts from companies such as Porter Construction and Gervasio and Associates, an engineering consulting company, were on hand to present information on their investigation and findings.
The experts said the roof was overloaded with weight, causing it to give way. The roof, which was originally finished in 1987, had three layers added in renovations between 1995-96. A new cooling unit was also added.Â
Steve Barnes, from Porter Construction, said the changes eventually caused overstresses on the support of the roof.
The roof collapsed around 3 a.m. on March 16, when no students or staff were present. The multi-purpose room and 12 classrooms were closed for several days. Students were relocated to Kyrene Middle School, which adjoins Waggoner.
Barnes said a new roof should be finished within the next two months.
“We’re on schedule to be completed the last day of July,” he said.
As to follow-up inspections of district schools since the collapse at Waggoner, Karin Smith, the district’s director of business services, said no reasonable risks of possible failures at other schools were found. She said the structural conditions of the schools are above average.
District spokeswoman Kelly Alexander added that informing the parents and community members remains a high priority.
“We certainly did want to hear the results of the inspection. We’ve been waiting for the experts to tell us exactly what did occur from the inspection,” she said. “We were able to hear that as well as (discuss) our plan to rebuild.”
The public was presented with information and allowed to ask questions at the end of the presentation. Most community members wanted to know what steps were being taken to prevent any future occurrences.
“We certainly always wanted, from the beginning, to share as much with the community as possible. It was a high priority to make sure the community was able to ask questions and was able to hear from the experts,” Alexander said.
“We’re very fortunate that this did occur at 3 a.m. No staff or child was injured in any way, but we didn’t want that to be a reason to not continue to look and be very diligent.”
Smith said the school district is on the offensive. Though structural inspections are not required in Arizona, Smith said the Kyrene district has examined each of its 25 schools.
“We are doing structural inspections as a result of it. We were able to inspect all 25 of our campuses to make sure they were safe for occupancy,” she said.
Rick Boeger and Don Zyriek attended the meeting, following which they said most of their questions were answered. However, they said there is still much more to be learned, noting that they hope to hear more from the district in the future.
“It was a start to getting the information out,” Zyriek said. “But there are more questions out still from a procedural standpoint.”
“I would hope we can learn the specifics about the process in 1995-96,” Boeger said. “Let’s hope that’s not being repeated in 2009. I’m hoping the people that do know are looking at (ways to prevent future incidents).”
The district is planning to provide more answers when it holds another meeting regarding the situation in August.
