Somerville students to take classes elsewhere after concrete falls at Winter Hill Community School

Community members in Somerville, Massachusetts, are adjusting to the closure of their school after it was deemed unsafe.

Students attending Winter Hill Community School, where a piece of concrete fell earlier this month, will be taking classes at another building next year.

District leaders unveiled their plans Tuesday at a virtual meeting, saying work to figure out why the debris fell from the ceiling will last into September.

No one was hurt by the falling concrete. The city's director of infrastructure says the piece that came down was not structural and the building is safe for entry.

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Water has seeped into parts of the building, a problem officials say caused a piece of concrete to fall onto a stairwell.

Next year, students in Grades 1-8 will attend class at the Edgerly Education Center. Pre-K through kindergarten students will study at the Capuano School.

The Edgerly is used as an administrative building, so in the coming weeks, staff will move out so they can set up for students.

Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne says the city is sparing no resources to make this transition possible.

"We are also continuing to move forward," Ballantyne said. "I have made it clear to my staff across more than a dozen departments that this is a priority."

The city has hired an emergency management specialist to help lead an incident command system to move through this process.

District leaders say they are still working on logistics, including what busing would look like.

Classes are canceled for most of the week for students at a school in Somerville, Massachusetts, amid structural concerns at the Winter Hill Community School.

Students will be finishing the school year in different buildings, after a piece of concrete fell from the ceiling last week at the school. A virtual meeting is being held for the school community Monday night.

No one was hurt when the concrete fell last week, but school officials said that the area is no longer safe. This prompted the school to cancel classes last Friday through this Wednesday, and close the building for the rest of the academic year.

The PTA is urging all parents at Winter Hill Community School to be part of a Zoom call on Monday night to get the finance committee to make the school building the number one priority on its budget plan.

Children from pre-k to eighth grade are being split up into several groups, and will be resuming classes on Thursday at different sights. AIM classrooms will move to the Edgerly Building, pre-k and kindergarten will move to the Capuano Early Childhood Center and grades one through eight will move to Tufts University's Olin Hall in Medford.

Parents said that the school has long been in bad shape, and have complained to the city about it. Now, they're having to deal with interruptions.

The sign on school grounds say call 311 to report problems, but parents at Winter Hill Community School say lately, they've been wanting to call 911.

"It's hard for some parents who don't have childcare for their kids, who don't have a budget for childcare," parent Gandhy Aldana said. "It's hard to think about, because where will they go? We don't know."

School officials said they will continue to provide school lunch during canceled classes, and will be providing more information on the school website and during Monday night's meeting over Zoom.