PORTLAND, Ore. — Hundreds of Portland Public Schools (PPS) students are still unable to return to class, after Markham Elementary School and Robert Gray Middle School were heavily damaged in recent storms.
In a recent letter to parents, Portland Public Schools said students may not be able to return to the schools until mid-February due to water-damaged plaster and drywall, as well as disrupted asbestos from burst pipes.
At Robert Gray, holes in the ceiling left insulation coating classroom floors. Burst pipes and the school roof began to leak, too, which led to significant water damage.
At Markham Elementary School classrooms, hallways and gyms had significant water damage from burst pipes, Portland Public Schools administrators said.
"I really wasn't expecting this," said Royce Salvatore, a fifth grader at Markham.
Parents of Markham students said with so much missed schooling due to winter storms and a November teachers strike, they are growing more concerned about their children's education.
"You feel really powerless," Liz Hing, a parent of two Markham students, said.
Hing said Markham staff planned to hand out Chromebooks to students in order to restore classes to remote learning on Thursday, though in the past, her children struggled to learn virtually.
"Virtual learning for us never really went well," Hing said.
"I don't really like it," Salvatore added.
Other parents told KGW that weeks of missed class time this school year has led to emotional and financial stress.
"I've had to quit my job; I was a nurse during the teacher strike,” said a parent of a fifth grader at Markham, who preferred to stay anonymous. “I had to quit my job; I was a nurse at Keizer, and I had to quit my job because I didn't have anybody to stay home with my kids."
Now, she is filing applications to transfer her son to a private school or a different school district.
“There are other students and other taxpayers in the PPS school district that have access to education that my student doesn’t have,” she said.
Some parents told KGW they hope the district can find other buildings to house students until repairs are completed. PPS said they are looking at all options but have not yet made a final decision.
PPS announced Tuesday evening that they will relocate students at Markham and Robert Gray to other PPS schools as repairs take place, which may force the student bodies to be split up, but ultimately, will "share more concrete plans tomorrow."
"Given the various considerations, we have determined the most viable path forward is to relocate students to other Portland Public Schools buildings (as opposed to relocating to a non-district site). As we explore options, we aim to keep your students as close to home as possible. This may require us to split the student body between buildings, transform non-classrooms into classrooms, and make other adjustments to our other buildings, all of which will take a little more time," explained PPS Chief of Schools Jon Franco in a Thursday newsletter.