Moving truck begins taking items out of Sommerville school after concrete fell onto a stairwell

SOMMERVILLE, Mass. — Teachers, staff, and moving crews spent Monday transporting classroom materials and furniture like desks and chairs from the Winter Hill Community Innovation School to three new locations after the elementary school suddenly shut down Friday.

“Since Thursday we have been all hands on deck finalizing the contingency plans for the remainder of the school year, we set up an incident command, we mobilized across the schools and the city and multiple teams have worked through the weekend to ready that plan,” said Somerville mayor Katjana Ballantyne.

Somerville city and school leaders say they were forced to close the school after a chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling and onto a stairwell last week.

“We are taking this very seriously and will only allow students back into the building once we know it’s safe,” said Rich Raiche, Director of Infrastructure for the city of Somerville.

Engineers are now working to inspect the building while students will resume classes on Thursday at new schools.

Most students in Grades 1-8 will have their classes at Tufts University for the last two weeks of the school year.

“I think the condition of our building sends a really clear message to our students about their worth, right now we’re in a building, whether or not it is structurally sound, the conditions are unacceptable,” said Kara Dodd, a special educator at Winter Hill.

Teachers and parents are frustrated by the lack of action to renovate or rebuild the school.

Dozens of them spoke during a city council budget hearing Monday night, urging city leaders to make Winter Hill a top funding priority in next year’s budget.

“We’ve been requesting a new building for decades this is nothing new,” said Aveva Manning, a teacher at Winter Hill during the budget hearing. “My and my students’ personal items and classwork have been rained on from the ceiling and through closed windows, have been eaten by mice, cockroaches, and other pests.”

Some city leaders say Winter Hill is a top priority for funding from the city.

“We clearly see that chasing problems in this building is a fool’s errand, which is why last fiscal’s year budget included funding for a comprehensive plan to fully renovate or replace the Winter Hill,” said Raiche.

But many teachers and parents have yet to see those plans.

“The building is desperately sending us a message – it is tired, it needs some self-care and just putting up new tiles or doing study after study is not going to create the nurturing calming and most importantly safe learning environment that our students deserve,” said Manning.

Somerville Public Schools provided the following schedule for families:

• AIM Classrooms will move to the Edgerly Building, 8 Bonair Street, 1st Floor. Please see below for additional information.
• Prekindergarten and Kindergarten will move to the Capuano Early Childhood Center, 150 Glen St. Please see below for additional information.
• Grades 1-8 will move to Tufts University’s Olin Hall, 180 Packard Avenue, Medford (on the Somerville line). While this site is in Medford, DESE has granted SPS a waiver to host classes in this building for the remainder of this school year. Please see below for additional information.
• Monday, June 5th: Staff will pack materials from WHCIS that are needed for the school year. The City’s Inspectional Services Department has deemed the building safe for entry and use for staff, but the building cannot accommodate the full student population while the impacted stairwell is closed. Educators will also pack any student belongings that may be remaining in classrooms.
• Tuesday, June 6th: Classroom materials will be moved to the new temporary locations. Educators will use this time for planning and set up of their new temporary classroom spaces.
• Wednesday, June 7th: Educators will use this time to prepare and finalize their new temporary classroom spaces.
• Thursday, June 8th: Classes resume in new temporary locations.

Additionally, a virtual information session will be held at 5:00 p.m. Tuesday night for families to ask questions. A link will be emailed out prior to the meeting.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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