This year, BVN has faced various building issues, including clogged drains and flooding, leading to disruptions during the school day. These issues can be linked to the old age of the building, with North opening its doors in 1986.
“Ultimately, you have an older building and you have pipes and you have bathrooms where at any point in time, different things are flushed down them,” Micheal Moss said, BVN’s assistant principal and activity director.
There have been multiple renovations and add-ons to the school in recent years thanks to new government-issued bonds. However, future plans for improvements in infrastructure remain uncertain.
“We will have more additions to a couple of different parts of the school. What those are going to be, we really don’t know yet,” Moss said.
On Friday, Oct. 6th, bathroom drains flooded, causing spillage into the 300 hallway. Administrators acted quickly to communicate and shut down the hallway to students and staff, rerouting the annual homecoming hallway parade route.
“They were filling up and kind of getting into the hallways and creating quite an issue and so we were able to get communication to our district facilities and they were able to come down here and get worked on and address the issue fairly quickly,” Moss said.
These issues have also affected BVN staff, including librarian Abby Cornelius when a similar incident occurred with a gas leak in the 300 hallway.
“So usually when something like that happens where there’s a sewage geyser or a gas smell, then they tried to move classes in here.” Cornelius said, “When we had the gas leak they just started sending classes to the library, but I already have three classes scheduled to work in here like teachers had signed up ahead of time to be here.”
These issues can put a halt to learning during the school day, with staff and students having to adjust lesson plans.
“When stuff like that happens, it definitely disrupts learning for not just the classes that are experiencing the thing, but then the classes in here,” Cornelius said.
So far, the school officials and admins have made swift and efficient responses to these occurrences, working with custodians to clean up any messes and keep students safe.
“I think actually they do pretty well of keeping things together because like that happened.” Cornelius said, “I mean, everybody was just doing the best that they could, with principles running back and forth trying to help the custodians and keep people from walking through water.”
BVN administration works to provide a safe learning environment and transparency when it comes to addressing school-building issues. Going forward, the BVN community should extend their support and understanding to the dedicated staff when these issues arise.
