Somerville School Closes After Concrete Falls
A school in Somerville, Massachusetts, was forced to shut down last week after a chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling — adding to a laundry list of other problems, according to frustrated parents — and it will remain closed for the rest of the school year, leaving the city to figure out where to put hundreds of students for the time being.
The sign on school grounds says call 311 to report problems, but parents at Winter Hill Community School say lately, they’ve been wanting to call 911.
No one was inside the school when that concrete fell, but some furious parents say this is just one of the many issues they’ve been dealing with when it comes to structural damage and they don’t feel safe sending their kids to the Winter Hill school.
The mayor and interim superintendent released a statement this weekend, saying, “Closing school as we did Friday or shifting locations for the remainder of the year is of course never what we want for our students, families, or staff, but out of an abundance of caution, we are all hands on deck finalizing contingency plans for the remainder of the school year. We’ve set up an incident command, and teams across both the schools and City have been busy at work readying a plan.”
Aldana says this is all very frustrating as many parents are scrambling to find someone to watch their kids Monday through Wednesday this week. She’s asking all parents in Somerville to get on a Zoom call scheduled 7:30 p.m. Monday to express concerns to the city.
