On Friday, the school closed due to “the inability to maintain water pressure in the building,” according to Kuhn.
The school was without water Friday morning into the afternoon as the water depressurized around 6:30 a.m.
Repair crews and district maintenance employees were unable to restore the water Friday morning, but were on-site throughout the day to fix the system.
“We fought the good fight, but repair crews have determined that water cannot be restored in a timely manner this morning,” Kuhn said Friday morning.
Kuhn had placed the building on a two-hour delay initially, hoping repairs could be made in time to allow classes to happen, just later.
The school was also closed Thursday after a break in the water service line following a pressure switch failure in the new system that was just brought fully online on Tuesday.
When water pressure builds up in the system, it reaches a point where the switch is supposed to tell the water pump to stop pumping, but it kept pumping and put too much pressure in the system, which caused the break in the line to happen.
Kuhn said that issue was repaired and the water system worked Thursday night and had pressure Friday morning when the head custodian did morning checks. The second issue then arose.
“Quite frankly, the timing of this issue is extremely frustrating as buses, student drivers and parent drop-offs were already on their way to the school when the system lost pressure,” he said.
On Friday morning, students who rode buses were offloaded at the school, walked to the elementary and waited there to determine if the water service could be restored. Student drivers and students who get dropped off were sent home to report back after the two-hour delay. However, those students could not return to the building as the water system was not fixed in time.
“I know this morning was unexpected for both students and families,” Kuhn said Friday. “Our planned timeline to bring this new system online was unexpectedly advanced when we experienced a plumbing issue over Christmas Break.”
The district has had several issues in the last few weeks with both the old and new water systems.
The extreme winter temperatures Christmas weekend caused a critical component in the old water system to fail, which resulted in depressurization that could potentially cause the water inside the system to become contaminated.
Because of that, the district issued a boil advisory, with signs posted at all sinks and all drinking fountains were bagged.
Initially, Kuhn said results came back all clear on Wednesday from the issue over the holiday, but now with the issues with the new system, the water has to be tested again. Potable water is available through water coolers placed throughout the building, and students are encouraged to bring a water bottle with them to school.
Kuhn said when the district completed the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) renovation project on the Clark-Shawnee middle and high school building in 2020, the existing water treatment system was not called out for replacement. Officials still decided to replace it with a new one. The cost to replace the water system is being paid out of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) grant allocation, Kuhn said.
Aside from the issues with the water system, the heating system also malfunctioned the week before the holiday break, causing students to be released early.
The source of the heating issue was a failed breaker that prevented two pumps from receiving the electricity needed to function properly and supply heat in the buildings. However, that issue was repaired later the same day and the building temperatures returned to normal for students to return the next day.
The current issues have caused middle and high school students to have an early dismissal and at least two days off school. Kuhn said these days will be used as “calamity days”, which are usually for weather but can be used for disruption of power or water, and will count towards those hours.
Although there are no longer “calamity days” in Ohio schools, districts often schedule excess hours above the minimum number of required hours to accommodate for weather or school-related situations that may delay or cancel school, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
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