John King

On Jan. 9, cold weather forced a delay pushing back arrival time to 9:15 a.m. Just before students were scheduled to arrive, flooding began on the first floor of the academic building which includes the cafeteria.

On Feb. 9, at 8:45 a.m., a significant break in the fire sprinkler system flooded the first floor of the main academic building of the Altoona Junior High School, forcing students and staff to relocate to the high school for the remainder of the day.

According to Superintendent Brad Hatch, there was “standing water on the entire first floor of the academic building.”

“Student arrivals were routed to the high school, and student attendance was taken at the high school,” Hatch said. “All students were fed lunch and maintained at the high school. All students will be dismissed from the high school at the regular dismissal times. We have provided updates to parents throughout the day as to what was going on.”

Junior high students were kept in the auditorium and the gym, causing high school gym classes to be disrupted. 

“The gym classes were affected by this,” physical education teacher Megan Yingling said.“We lost our gym spaces for class, but we were able to adapt and use the hallways and our other fitness rooms to help out the junior high.’’

 Cafeteria workers managed to provide lunches to all junior high students, while also providing for high school students.

“We have stuff prepared on Monday morning that will take us for a couple of days so we can make hoagies and we can make wraps,” cafeteria worker Daphne Gordon said. “There were five of the ladies from the junior high that came over and helped us and worked with us to prepare the food.”

For junior high teachers, the fire sprinkler break has been an “inconvenience.”

“It’s obviously an inconvenience, but at the same time we are lucky that we have a school this close that has enough room to house the junior high,” math teacher Christy Harrold said.

“It is a great inconvenience,” science teacher Duke Neatrour said. “The nice thing is I get to see former students in high school. I will have to make adjustments to plans, but life is all about adjustments.” 

Junior high students are also struggling with the impact of the break.

“It’s very crammed and hard to do anything,” eighth grader Ava Larderi said. “I think they did the transition in a very efficient way.”

According to Hatch, plans for high school students and staff will be announced this evening, Feb. 9. 

“Because of the nature and extensiveness of the damage, there is likely going to be – and this isn’t official yet – remote learning for junior high students and staff for at least the next couple days,” Hatch said.