Andres Blea, left, and Luke Sanchez remove ceiling panels Friday to reroute plumbing in a hallway at Ortiz Middle School, where a major waterline broke last week and flooded much of the school. The south-side school’s nearly 450 students have been attending virtually since Feb. 7 after a deluge of water damaged much of Ortiz’s B, C and T wings — or about 40% of the school — and district officials don’t have a timetable on when students might return.
Gabe Romero, executive director of operations for Santa Fe Public Schools, shows Friday where soaked drywall at Ortiz Middle School needed to be removed following a waterline break last week. Romero said corrosion of a pipe put in place during the school’s 1993 construction was to blame. “I don’t want to speculate on it, but [the pipe] should have lasted longer,” Romero said.
Michael Luther, left, and James Simpson with Mooring USA remove drywall at Ortiz Middle School on Friday that was soaked by a waterline break last week. District officials called in custodians and maintenance workers from across Santa Fe Public Schools to start removing the water early on Feb. 7 before hiring the nationwide disaster recovery and restoration company with offices in Albuquerque to continue the cleanup.
Andres Blea, left, and Luke Sanchez remove ceiling panels Friday to reroute plumbing in a hallway at Ortiz Middle School, where a major waterline broke last week and flooded much of the school. The south-side school’s nearly 450 students have been attending virtually since Feb. 7 after a deluge of water damaged much of Ortiz’s B, C and T wings — or about 40% of the school — and district officials don’t have a timetable on when students might return.
Gabe Romero, executive director of operations for Santa Fe Public Schools, shows Friday where soaked drywall at Ortiz Middle School needed to be removed following a waterline break last week. Romero said corrosion of a pipe put in place during the school’s 1993 construction was to blame. “I don’t want to speculate on it, but [the pipe] should have lasted longer,” Romero said.
Michael Luther, left, and James Simpson with Mooring USA remove drywall at Ortiz Middle School on Friday that was soaked by a waterline break last week. District officials called in custodians and maintenance workers from across Santa Fe Public Schools to start removing the water early on Feb. 7 before hiring the nationwide disaster recovery and restoration company with offices in Albuquerque to continue the cleanup.
Elizabeth Ramirez’s special education classroom was in disarray Friday.
Sheets of plastic covered the electronic whiteboard. Desks and chairs had been removed, leaving a barren floor that was textured and tacky where carpet was recently stripped away. Workers chipped away insulation, exposed by 2-foot-high gaps in the drywall and vacuumed up residue.
Much of Ortiz Middle School looks like this. Following a waterline break the morning of Feb. 7, industrial fans still whir in the hallways, and “keep out” signs, adhered with thick yellow tape, adorn most of the exterior doors.
The south-side school’s nearly 450 students in grades 6-8, now learning virtually, haven’t been on campus for nearly two school weeks, and district officials have no set return date, said Cody Dynarski, a spokesman for Santa Fe Public Schools.
The cause of the damage: Corrosion of a main pipe put into place during construction of the school in 1993, said Gabe Romero, the district’s executive director of operations. District officials have not pinpointed the cause of the corrosion.
“I don’t want to speculate on it, but [the pipe] should have lasted longer,” Romero said.
Following the break, a deluge of water damaged much of Ortiz’s B, C and T wings — or about 40% of the school — leaving a few inches of muddy water standing in hallways and classrooms. Although some of Ortiz’s walls are cinder block, the water seeped into carpet, drywall, insulation and baseboards across campus.
Luckily, much of Ortiz’s new technology — retrofitted with the latest SMART Board settings in summer 2022 — was hung from ceilings and spared water damage, Dynarski said. The gym, library and cafeteria were largely spared.
District officials called in a corps of custodians and maintenance workers from across Santa Fe Public Schools to start removing the water early on Feb. 7.
“When we found it, it was all hands on deck. … That morning, custodians, maintenance people with squeegees [were] pushing stuff out of here,” Romero said of Ortiz’s T wing.
The district then hired Mooring USA, a nationwide disaster recovery and restoration company with offices in Albuquerque, to continue the cleanup. About 15 to 20 of the company’s workers have been cleaning up the mess every day since the waterline burst, Romero said.
Once the Mooring team is finished, air quality and other environmental checks will be completed to ensure the campus is safe for students.
The job, then, is still far from over and kids aren’t back in the classroom.
Although initial estimates anticipated a return to campus next week, Dynarski said students will continue to learn virtually through at least Feb. 27.
So far, he said, students have responded well to virtual learning, with an attendance rate of over 90%. He applauded Ortiz teachers’ ability to “purple up” — the school’s slogan for perseverance — despite only having about a day to shift from in-person to online teaching.
For now, district officials, Ortiz students and families will have to be patient.
“We don’t want to rush anything back. … The safety of our staff and students is our priority. So when it’s finally safe to come back, that’s when we’re going to bring students back,” Dynarski said.
