PORTLAND, Ore. — When school starts on Aug. 28, one Portland Public middle school will open its doors once again, months after it was heavily damaged during an ice storm in Jan. 2024.
Frigid temperatures caused a pipe to freeze and burst at Robert Gray Middle School, sending water from the ceiling into multiple classrooms and damaging the ceilings, walls and school supplies throughout portions of the 72-year-old school.
"To see the building being impacted has had a personal impact for me, for sure. It's our home away from home," Lisa Lewlyn, principal of Robert Gray Middle School, said. "Teachers make this a space where they want kids to feel welcome and safe, and we kind of have to rebuild that again; it's very stark. We're ready to put the finishing touches on."
Room 126, a language arts classroom for 8th graders, took the brunt of the damage. The burst pipe flooded classrooms, sent insulation from the ceiling down to the ground and soaked the walls with water. Lewlyn walked KGW News through the school on Tuesday, showing how portions of the school that were damaged had been repaired.
"This has transformed tremendously because we got new ceilings. We've got fresh drywall; we've got new flooring, all new ballasts and lights," she said, showing off the freshly painted room.
The pipe stretched throughout the school, ruining one room after another.
"This room was majorly impacted because a lot of water intrusion through the roof," Lewlyn said, showing one of the rooms. "All new desks, new ways for kids to sit. We've got wobble chairs, you can see."
Lewlyn said the school received new desks and chairs in multiple classrooms, although a spokesperson from the district couldn't give an estimate of how much the repairs had cost because the totals had not been finalized, and they were still waiting on insurance and other forms of income to get tallied.
The school has new lockers throughout the lower level. Lewlyn said they have more now than they did prior to the storm. There are new projectors and screens in the classrooms, money from those coming from a school bond that Robert Gray Middle School was set to receive at some point. The repairs helped move that timeline up.
"Knowing that we've got a sound infrastructure above and below us, the things that we can't see that are hidden inside the walls, all of that, I think, gives us a sense of security knowing the district took care of a lot of things," Lewlyn said.
Teachers return to the classroom on Wednesday to get their rooms ready for the first day of school.
In several of the rooms, the whiteboards had the date Jan. 12, 2024, written on them — a reminder of the last day students and staff were inside the school before they were let out early ahead of the storm.
Students at Markham Elementary aren't as lucky. Their school was also heavily damaged in the storm and had to transition to learning at a separate location for the remainder of the year.
The district said that Markham Elementary won't be ready to go until after the new year. In the meantime, Markham Elementary students will go to school at Jackson Middle School until their school is ready, just like the students at Robert Gray did until theirs was finished.