Doherty heat

Finally, regarding the heat at Doherty, which has been an issue this week:

The Facilities Department also responded to Doherty High School this morning regarding the lack of heat within several parts of the school.  We understand that School Committee members have been contacted as well.

There were many classrooms that were as mid 40's as a result of equipment failure.  There were five rooftop units that malfunctioned overnight and in some cases they needed to be restarted and in others new equipment needed to be installed.  There were also many classrooms where the uninvent heaters were not functioning correctly.  As soon as these repairs were made the school is now back to normal heating temperatures.

During cold weather periods, we intend for most of the older schools to operate in full occupancy mode throughout the day and evening so that temperatures do not get too cold in the buildings.  With the repairs that have taken place we fully expect the entire school to be much more comfortable tomorrow.

It should be noted that the mechanical systems of the school is one of the reasons that the Administration would continue to submit the school for major renovation / replacement with the Massachusetts School Building Authority later this year.

Update on buses

We received a lengthy memo this afternoon from Mr. Allen, dealing with a number of Facilities and Operations issues today. I will post each subject as an individual post. Here, from Mr. Allen, a report on the bus issues today:

Today, we were notified by Durham School Services just prior to 6 am that as many as 16 large school buses would not start because of dead batteries.  Given the lateness of the notification, it was not practical to implement a two-hour delay or other action to alter school scheduling for the day.
The Administration used Twitter, Facebook, the WPS website. and a Connect-Ed message to contact all families about the delay in some bus routes and we posted the specific routes on the website.  We used Twitter, the website and Facebook to post messages about the status of the routes.
Buses were deployed to pick up all students and deliver them to their school.  The buses conducted sweeps of all city streets with assigned bus stops.  The City Manager engaged the Worcester Police Department and they were in contact with the Durham about students needing to be picked up.  In some cases, we understand that the WPS provided rides for students.
All buses were in operation for the afternoon dismissal.Durham does use an early morning start-up team to check on buses during cold weather.  We have revised early morning protocols with Durham to include earlier deployment of their team and earlier notification to WPS regarding potential issues.  We also understand that Durham has brought in additional charging stations, generators, and batteries to support their early morning start-up operation.  Given this increased effort on behalf of Durham, we hopefully will not see a repeat of this situation again. 

Morning routes complete

Just in from WPS:

All buses completed their routes & sweep of the entire city for students. Thank you for your patience and spreading the word this morning.
— WPS (@worcesterpublic) January 8, 2014

Very sincerely, thanks.

Update on the weekend burst pipes

The School Committee received the following from Mr. Allen yesterday:

...please be advised that the Facilities Department responded to eight schools over the weekend to address frozen / burst water pipes within the schools.  The frozen / burst pipes were at Claremont/Woodland Academies, North High, Belmont Street, Forest Grove, Canterbury Street, City View, Nelson Place, and Worcester Technical High School (City Technical Services section of building).  In all cases, the water lines were repaired and did not cause any interruption to school operations this week.  Repairs to ceiling tiles, insulation, walls, and other areas will occur over this week as needed.  In some cases the water damage was quite extensive and the Facilities Department is addressing the manner in which repairs will be scheduled.

The Facilities Department is in contact with both our ESCo and monitoring companies to determine to what extent new controls and monitoring systems contributed to some of the freeze ups.  This analysis is on-going at the present time.

Facilities and custodial staff at these schools provided an excellent response and worked much of the weekend to ready the impacted areas for normal school operations Monday morning and should be commended for their tremendous efforts!

And should you have any questions, please pass them along!

SOME BUSES DELAYED: UPDATED WITH LIST!!

Bus routes impacted by today's cold weather are posted on the district website:  http://t.co/brBYEAxVKP

If your bus is on the following list, you are urged, if possible, to seek alternative transportation.

DELAY IN SCHOOL BUSES DUE TO COLD WEATHER

Due to cold weather this morning, the following bus routes are experiencing significant delays: 

Bus 1 - Burncoat High & Seven Hills Charter

Bus 2 - Worcester East Middle and Seven Hills Charter

Bus 4 – Seven Hills Charter and Quinsigamond

Bus 6  - Seven Hills Charter and Venerini Academy

Bus 9 - South High and Seven Hills Charter

Bus 17 - Norrback Ave and Sullivan Middle

Bus 45 - South High and Quinsigamond Elementary
Bus 52 - South High and Goddard Elementary

Bus 55 - South High and Goddard Elementary

Bus 32 - North High and Burncoat Prep Elementary

Bus 33 - North High and Jacob Hiatt Magnet

Bus 25  - Burncoat High, Burncoat Middle, and St. Mary’s  Elementary

Bus 29 – Worcester Technical High and Roosevelt Elementary

Bus 44 – South High and City View Elementary

Bus 76  - St. Peter Marian and St. Peter Central Catholic

Bus 83  - Burncoat High and Norrback Ave

Bus company working to get these routes going as soon as possible!

ALL BUS STOPS EVENTUALLY WILL BE GOTTEN TO!

Broken pipes

No, we aren't immune...
If you're following things over on the Worcester Twitter feeds, you've seen that we have broken pipes at several schools as of this afternoon:

The latest victim of frozen pipes/flooding: Worcester Technical High School. @DJEricPike @cascadingwaters
— Joe (@ScanWorcester) January 4, 2014

Then:

Among about an additional dozen water calls since my last tweet, we can add Forest Grove MS to the list. @cascadingwaters @DJEricPike
— Joe (@ScanWorcester) January 4, 2014

And:

@cascadingwaters @ScanWorcester @DJEricPike sounds like canterbury street is the latest :(
— jen macdonald (@MacDonaldJen) January 4, 2014

There are others. Facilities is on top of this, and I expect that we'll get an update once they have a handle on what we're dealing with.
UPDATE: Looks as though the T&G found it, too.

Caradonio New Citizens back up and running

Update this morning from school facilities: the heat has been restored to the entire building as of last night, and the students and faculty returned there today.
Thanks to Sullivan Middle for your flexibility yesterday!

UPDATED: And the buses all started on time this morning!

Cold weather consequences

It is cold outside, and, per an email from Mr. Allen this evening, the Worcester Public Schools have seen a few consequences. To wit:

• The Caradonio New Citizens Center was without heat today after the boiler failed and the lines consequently froze. NCC is getting a new boiler this summer--they've already been approved by MSBA--but while we get their building heat, the school, today through Friday, will be at Sullivan.

• And diesel engines, you may have heard, don't like the cold. To quote Mr. Allen directly:

Durham did have a problem with a number of their school buses today. They had started and moved all of them on Monday to clear their yard of snow and there were no problems that day. This morning they had several drivers and mechanics come in early to start the buses, as they do when overnight temperatures are 23 degrees or below. Some of the buses would not start, the air brakes froze on others, and still others would not go into either drive or reverse gear. As a result, and after our discussions with them today, Durham will have additional mechanics and “bus starters” on duty early tomorrow and beyond due to the expected continuance of extremely low overnight temperatures. They will also have extra new batteries available in case that is the cause for a bus not starting. Although we do not pay for routes that do not run, we recognize and have stressed upon Durham the significant inconvenience and hardship that late or no transportation has on our students and their families.

More to come as needed, but please do bundle up your kids!