PORT ANGELES — A persistent leak in a Port Angeles High School classroom has forced the school to temporarily move one teacher’s classroom to another building.
Teacher Peter Rennie has been battling the leak in his 400 Building classroom all school year, said Principal Jeff Clark.
Rennie used buckets as a temporary solution for much of the year, but now maintenance crews are trying to put an end to the leak, Clark said.
Anytime there had been heavy rain, the ceiling would start leaking again, he said, calling it an ongoing issue.
“Maintenance has gotten to where the investigation has to go deeper,” he said. “They are at the point where they want to solve it once and for all.”
The room is now closed off for safety reasons as crews work, said Tina Smith-O’Hara, district spokeswoman.
Students haven’t been allowed in the classroom since Wednesday while crews worked to find the problem.
Classes in that room have been moved to another building on campus. Clark hopes the leak will be fixed soon but said he didn’t know when students could return to that room.
“I hope it’s not very long because we don’t have a lot of extra rooms,” he said.
It’s not uncommon for the school to fight leaks, Clark said, calling the most recent one a symptom of having an aging building.
“Our buildings are old and getting close to the end of their expected life,” he said. “Maintenance crews do a good job. It’s not always that easy.”
He said leaks developed in the 100 Building previously after vandals walked on the roof. At the time, the school had to use trash barrels up and down the hall to collect leaking water.
Once the maintenance department applied a new membrane roof to the building over the summer, the problem went away.
“When buildings get this old, they tend to develop leaks,” Clark said.
He credits the maintenance department for keeping the buildings functional as long as they have been.
“Maintenance crews do a really good job,” he said. “It’s why we’ve been able to keep these older buildings functioning for so long.”
The roof of the 400 is eyed as a capital project this summer, said Smith-O’Hara.
The Port Angeles School District is asking voters to approve a $36.4 million educational programs and operation replacement levy that would fund 22 percent of the district’s daily operating budget.
If approved during Tuesday’s election, the district would levy $9.1 million annually for four years starting in 2018. It is a renewal of the levy approved by voters in 2015, which is set to expire at the end of 2017.
The district has earmarked 26 percent of the levy to go toward maintenance.
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsula dailynews.com.
