West Holmes district pitches in to assist in classroom cleanup

Monday, Feb. 17 was supposed to be a teacher’s in-service day for West Holmes School District staff. For the staff at Millersburg Elementary, it turned into a work day of a very different kind because of a heating coil in a boiler of the heater in second-grade teacher Deb Thern’s room that burst sometime between late Sunday and early Monday morning.

The burst coil spewed hot water everywhere, creating a sauna in Thern’s room. The damage did not stop there as the water and steam quickly made its way down to the first floor in Catrina Crider’s first-grade classroom directly below. Crider’s room actually received the brunt of the damage.

“When I came in this morning, there was just water pouring out of the ceiling over here,” Millersburg Elementary School principal Renee Woods said. “It looked like a waterfall. There were at least 3 inches of water on the floor. I just felt numb.”

By the time staff began arriving Monday morning, nearly everything in the classroom was destroyed.

For both Thern and Crider the accident claimed a career’s worth of books and material. In addition electronic items such as Chrome books, the television and most importantly the smart board, which is a great deal of a teacher’s world, were all destroyed.

“Renee called me at around 7:30 this morning and told me what had happened and that my room was affected,” Crider said. “You try to imagine what it might look like, but it was far worse than anything I could have ever imagined. When I finally saw it, I just broke down and cried. I’m at a loss for words knowing what lies ahead and how much of my own material I lost, and Debbie did too. It’s overwhelming. We invested a lot of money and a lot of time creating our classrooms, and now they are gone.”

While the water did some damage, the steam was a far worse culprit, rendering anything paper useless.

While it was a disaster, Woods was in awe of the way her entire teaching staff and the custodial staff of the entire district pulled together to attack the problem.

“Everybody has stepped in and done whatever they can to clean up this mess,” Woods said. “Our staff jumped right in, and the custodial staff from the middle school got here immediately to help. The custodians have been amazing. Plus our staff has already shown incredible support for Catrina and Debbie. That means a lot in getting through something like this. We’ve got a pretty great district.”

This is not the first time this type of disaster has struck Millersburg Elementary. About 15 years ago the same thing happened in the rooms of second-grade teacher Ann Mast and first-grade teacher Kim Miller, whose room was directly underneath and destroyed.

“It’s a horrible experience,” Miller said of dealing with the aftermath. “Your entire career is in this room, and just like that it is destroyed. It took more than a week for us to get the room cleaned up and back to where we could have class. It’s just an awful thing to have happen to any teacher who pours themselves into their job for the kids. It’s nice to have great moral support.”

West Holmes School District treasurer Jamie Zeigler was present, taking photos and video for insurance purposes, and she said when a district is using an old building like Millersburg, these types of circumstances are going to come up.

“It’s an old building with an old heating system, and when they start to fail, it can be very problematic,” Zeigler said. “We do have insurance, but you can’t replace the materials that these teachers have collected over the years. Fortunately we are blessed to have a staff that is so caring and compassionate for each other. We’ve seen people stepping right in to help in any way they can so that we can overcome and get back to some type of normalcy as quickly as possible. I’m just afraid that with the age of our buildings we are only going to see more of this type of thing.”

Millersburg Elementary was originally built in 1913. An addition was added in 1930, and the most recent addition, where the accident took place, was erected in 1956.

Miller said each of the rooms on the first floor of the newest addition have now suffered from major water damage.

Mitch Neece, maintenance supervisor for the West Holmes District, was heading up the clean-up effort. He said when the classrooms will be completely restored is a guessing game, especially in Crider’s room, where the damage was the worst.

“We have to make sure everything is dried up before we can even begin to assess the damage,” Neece said. “We may have to look at putting in a new ceiling because we don’t yet know if it is stable. We will have to paint the walls, and we will have to explore all of the wiring and electrical components in each room.”

Woods said Crider’s class will move in temporarily with Miller’s first-grade class, and they will teach together for the time being.

Fortunately Crider and Thern can take solace in knowing they have a wonderful support team in their school and in the district to help them through this tough time.