ROGERS, Ark. — Students have been learning from home for a few days and for one school district that’s a good thing because weather conditions have caused issues at several buildings.
Rogers High School is one of the facilities that has been downright frigid this week.
“A breaker actually tripped at the football stadium and that’s where the heater was helping control that system. Well, when the heats gone obviously, we know in single-digit temperatures that impact things quickly," said Charles Lee, Assistant Superintendent with Rogers Public Schools.
Another high school, one middle school and three elementary schools including Fairview have had problems.
Fairview had a sprinkler head valve freeze.
“The first issue we encountered was actually the day before yesterday at Ingle Middle School where we had a line burst there and we had our fire suppression come and do an assessment and it was actually a line going through a sprinkler head that burst," Lee said.
The Springdale School District has also had some minor issues with frozen pipes, but its facilities have held up well. School leaders are giving credit to custodial workers and maintenance crews.
“A couple of our schools had pipe issues. One of them was fixed very quickly and the other one should be fixed by 5 o’clock tonight. Really when you consider the temperatures that we encountered, the snow we encountered, we’ve been very fortunate," said Rick Schaeffer, the Media Relations Specialist with Springdale Public Schools.
Lee says things are under control now and repairs are being made.
"Hindsight is 20/20 when you look at an issue like this and we’re going to consider doing some insulation spraying in the ceiling and interior of the attic area to try to get us some extra protection in future events," Lee said.
The main damage was caused to some ceiling tile and sheetrock, but Lee says those repairs should be completed before students return to campus.
The Rogers School District has already announced a remote learning day for Thursday (Feb. 18).
A decision has not been made about Friday (Feb.19) yet.