Courtney Menzies went to the island today and spoke with the principal about their plans for Monday. Here is that story.

Summer break is almost over, but San Pedro High School will be unable to open their normal classrooms since, about two and a half weeks ago, the ceiling in their staff room collapsed.

Luckily, it happened during summer, and on a Sunday, so no one was injured. But weeks away from the reopening of school, the staff has been scrambling to find a way to ensure that the only high school on the island can accommodate the students.

Emil Vasquez, Principal, San Pedro High School
"However the room was opened on Monday, the following day, again nobody was here, I believe it was a holiday, the 1st of August, I hope I have the dates correct, around 5pm when a teacher went to get some equipment there and then he saw it, and then they called us and from there we came and we began to communicate with the board, with the ministry. So far we have had three engineers, the first one thanks to the San Pedro Town Council, the engineer who works with them and his immediate advise was not to put students and teachers in there for now until a proper evaluation by a structural engineer is done."

"Once we get that report then we will know how to proceed, especially in terms of repairs."

"Definitely we have a plan and again, that is subject to approval from the Ministry of Education, not to use the building, so we are going to use the building there which is the Manuel Heredia Hall. It's a newer building, it has been checked and it is structurally safe for students. that holds about 8 classrooms."

"Right now, we are thinking about working on a shift system, where in the morning we bring ten classes and in the afternoon we bring another ten classes, so we're going to be working on a shift system to begin with. Now, how long that will take, it all depends on how much repairs we need to do to the building."

But what caused the collapse? Well, the school is next to the sea, so the salt air does play a role. But according to the Senior Executive Engineer at the Ministry of Infrastructure - who was one of three engineers that have done evaluations - the building itself wasn't constructed to suit island life.

Irving Thimbriel, Senior Executive Engineer, MIDH
"If it was during normal working hours, somebody might have been killed because it was a sizable piece of concrete. It's almost the entire section of one of the beams that fell off the floor slab. so we went in and we did an evaluation of the entire structure and we found some things that I was concerned about. To the back of the building, there is a wooden gangway, if I may call it that, that allows access from one building to the next. When we were doing inspection, some of the wooden members that allow for the joining of that wooden structure onto the concrete structure, they were already severely decayed and it's a cocktail for another disaster to happen."

"You could see to the rear of the building there are some clubs and some beams that are honeycombed. Honeycomb happens when you have separation of the aggregates when you are pouring the element and those were honeycombed. Normally for concrete structure that are along the side of the coast that are close to the seaside, it's a consequence of the high salt air content. The covering for the rebars has to be greater and there has to leave vibration to ensure that that portion that protects the steels stays in place. And the floor that we saw that fell away, it was a consequence of that extended activity going on without any intervention happening. The steel was place in the middle of the slab, which means that that steel isn't really working and the steel had corroded to almost half the size of its diameter."

A cocktail for disaster, as Thimbriel put it. While, according to the principal, inspections are done every 6 months, and renovations have been made to the outside, the building has been constantly expanded upon over the years without in-depth repairs or evaluation.

And while no one was hurt, parents are still worried about sending their children to school on Monday, especially since they say the school has not been communicating with them.

Delmy Saenz, Parent
"All I could say, thank goodness no one was at the school because you could imagine if school was open and students was in there, somebody would get hurt, so all I could say thank God no one was there."

"We're worried, well, I'm worried as a parent because I don't want anything like that happen again during school hours so I think they should take a very good look at the building to see that everything is okay."

Courtney Menzies:
"Do you feel like there's been a lack of community between the school and the parents as to how they'll move forward?"

Delmy Saenz, Parent
"For right now yes, but I would say maybe when school open, they might have meetings."

Courtney Menzies:
"But don't you think that's a little too late?"

Well, yeah, but I think that's when everyone will be back and I would say maybe then they will get everyone together and talk about it. [00:01:30.08]

Astrid Montes, Parent
"I started to panic, I was worrying because I'm concerned about it because I have there kids, first form, second form, and a third former and it's really hard because you don't want any accident to happen and I think we need a new school. They need to break down the school because I feel like it's kind of old and I really don't want to put my kids in that danger but we have to do it because we need the education."

Courtney Menzies:
"But has the school communicated anything to you guys?"

Astrid Montes, Parent
"No, nothing at all. Everybody knows about it because it was on Facebook and the social media, but I don't know, I think maybe the minister should do something about it and try to put the kids somewhere safe, or build a new school, something."

Courtney Menzies:
"But you're wary about sending your kids Monday."

Astrid Montes, Parent
"Yes, I'm really worried because on Monday I'm sending my first former, and Tuesday the second former, and Wednesday my son that's in third form, I'm so proud of my kids because it's a lot of struggles but my kids passed."

Courtney Menzies:
"And they're talking about putting the kids on a shift system, where some come in the morning, some come in the afternoon in that newer building in the back. Do you feel like this will hinder their process considering they won't be at school all day, it will be just in the morning or the afternoon."

Astrid Montes, Parent
"In a way yes, but they will be more safe and that's what I'm more concerned about as a parent but I wish they could get the full day education but to me, that's more safe because I know my kids they would, like maybe they won't even concentrate good because they're worrying about the ceiling will fall."

And while the plan is for a shift system similar to the one schools practiced after the pandemic pause, there is concern that this might set students back.

Emil Vasquez, Principal, San Pedro High School
"That's a good question, I think that's a concern everywhere, I just came back from a conference in the Caribbean, and that's the same thing they were talking about. We are going to do our best because at some point we discussed why don't we just go online and stuff like that but then we decided no, even if it takes a little more effort on behalf of our teachers and everybody, we're going to bring our kids everyday at school and if we need to complement the school with online work, we are going to build that capacity also to so that."

With the evening division and the junior college, the total number of students who used the building is approximately 1,000.