“I do not have a list,” Millicent Borishade, superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools, said during a community listening session last week.
She’s referring to a list of 12 schools that were damaged during the May 16 tornado — some of which may not be repaired in time for the first day of school on Aug. 18.
The school buildings sustained about $1 million in initial damage, which is expected to grow to $1.8 million as the district tries to stabilize the structures, according to Chief of Operations Square Watson. The initial costs have included tarps for school roofs, debris removal and building inspections.
The district is continuing to evaluate the buildings and is unclear whether the schools impacted by the storm will be closed definitively.
The damage from the tornado coincides with the district’s ongoing school consolidation plan known as “Reimagining SLPS,” which was spurred after a demographic study of St. Louis found the district is projected to see a continued drop in student enrollment over the next decade.
The study was led by Cordogan, Clark & Associates, an architecture firm, which has also led a building utilization study of all of the school buildings and facilities in the district.
Last year, the survey found that it would cost the district $1.8 billion over the next 20 years to repair and maintain its 68 schools and 72 facilities. That number has naturally increased since the damage from the storm.
Borishade and previous school board members have emphasized that it’s not sustainable for the district to keep up all of its many aging school buildings — some of which are over 100 years old.
Directly after the storm, SLPS redirected students from the 12 damaged buildings to other schools in the district, but Borishade confirmed that attendance plummeted during that last week of school. She also said attendance during the first week of summer school, which was projected to be about 5,000 students, reached less than 2,500.
“People were understandably scared,” Borishade said. “Imagine, you planned to send your children to school but weren’t sure if they would come back. That’s scary.”
The district was also unable to provide reliable transportation for students after one of its providers said it had sustained damage to one of its bus storage facilities.
Borishade said she has requested additional makeup days from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education so the district is not docked for lower attendance rates.
The district used up many of its snow days during the winter storm in January.
Borishade said that if some of the damaged buildings are not ready in time for the start of the school year, students and staff from the impacted schools will attend reassigned schools.
“What I know for sure, everybody is working as hard as they can,” Borishade said. “I can’t guarantee that the buildings will be ready for Aug. 18, but we have those partner schools that will be ready to receive students from schools that have been impacted.”
The following schools were damaged during the storm:
- Dewey ES
- Hamilton ES
- Washington Montessori ES
- Bryan Hill ES
- Hickey ES
- Ashland ES
- Columbia ES
- Blewett MS
- Yeatman MS
- Pamoja Preparatory Academy
- Sumner HS
- Soldan International Studies HS
Correction: St. Louis Public Schools did not specify which of its transportation providers sustained damage to one of its storage facilities. A previous version of this story mentioned one of its transportation providers by name.
