WYOMING, Mich. (WOOD) — School is in session at Lee Middle & High School, but this year’s classes come with a few changes.
This comes after the school’s roof collapsed in June. Days later, the building’s outer wall came down too.
Engineers determined leaking water caused corrosion on some of the building’s support beams, which led to the infrastructure failure.
The school lost seven classrooms and about 10,000 square feet of the building. The affected portion of the building was sealed off. Students are still using the remaining 90%.
“For the situation that happened, we’re in a pretty good spot,” said Godfrey-Lee School Superintendent Kevin Polston.
Some classrooms are now in the 6th-grade building. Others have been moved to classrooms that were seldom used in the main building.
“So, this is adjacent to the affected area, and we’ve cornered off the wing by firewalls and a fire door,” Polston said as he described the building’s new set up.
Some classroom spaces now have a partition dividing them splitting one classroom into two.
“Primarily, they were high school classrooms [affected]. There were some that served both middle and high school,” he said.
The district plans to start demolition on the affected area this fall and later rebuild. They’re currently in the design phase.
“We still have infrastructure going through the affected wing and that’s part of the design to reroute that infrastructure, so we can maintain our electrical, plumbing, fire suppression,” Polston said.
Polston says they hope to start construction work to rebuild the school in summer 2020.
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