Mold, rust led to the closure of James Madison Elementary School; district board declares emergency

The Desert Sands Unified School District board unanimously voted on Sunday night to declare that an emergency exists at James Madison Elementary School in Indio after a company found rust and corrosion at the base of structural pillars in the exterior walls of the building. 

District officials held a special board meeting after announcing the day before that school was canceled this week for students at Madison Elementary.

Jordan Aquino, Desert Sands business services assistance superintendent, said the emergency declaration allows the school board to bypass the formal competitive bidding process to quickly move forward on the building work that's needed.

Aquino said there is no project timeline yet and they do not know when the school will be able to be occupied again. The district will first need to contract a company before it is known how long it will take to fix the building's structure. Aquino said the emergency declaration will allow the process to move faster.

Scott Davis, James Madison Elementary principal, said he believes the action was necessary and is happy with the district’s proactive approach. He said while Adams Early Childhood Learning Center in La Quinta, where Madison students will now attend classes, will be a bit cramped with the combination of two schools into one campus, he said that also means there will be twice as many administrators make sure things run smoothly.

Davis said he hasn’t talked to any parents or students about the situation yet since he just learned about it on Saturday but will be available to answer any questions during Monday’s parent meeting.

Parents will be given the opportunity to meet with district leaders on Monday at 9 a.m. and at 3 p.m., at Madison's multipurpose room, which Perry said is structurally sound. 

What it means for students

For Madison’s approximately 500 students this closure means school is canceled Oct. 14-18 while the administration prepares to transfer classes to the Adams Early Childhood Learning Center, another district-operated campus in La Quinta. School will resume at that location on Oct. 21 and students will attend class at the La Quinta building for the foreseeable future.

Mary Perry, Desert Sands spokeswoman, said the district will provide busing to the new school for students but the logistics of re-designing bus routes is still in the process and parents will learn what the new bus route options are in the coming days.

Because of altered bus routes and the combining of two schools into one building, the school schedule might also change slightly. Perry said it could just be a 30-minute difference in school start time, but that is also still being decided.

“We hope that the rest of the community will be understanding about this situation,” Perry said. “We hope that the employers of our parents will be understanding and flexible with their schedules since we have an unexpected week off for students and because school start times might be changing next week.”

Perry said while the district doesn’t have resources to provide childcare for students this week, she hopes that parents will be supportive of other parents and offer childcare assistance when appropriate.

What the inspection found

The district closed the Indio campus after a contractor found the structure of campus’ main building was possibly not safe and needed further inspection. The district said they made the decision based on an “overabundance of caution,” according to a district press release.

The structural engineer for LPA Inc., an architectural design firm working on the campus modernization, observed that several metal support columns are corroded. The firm discovered the corrosion after following mold removal from inside the exterior walls, which then exposed the rusting columns.

The design firm said they believe the daily power washing of the exterior walls led to the build-up of mold and rust because it appears that water from the washes had been seeping into the walls.

On Friday, the design firm contacted the school district and recommended certain areas of the school be closed until further inspection.

The letter submitted by the firm's structural engineer and principal architect said buildings 300A and 300B are "at risk of failure due to loss of steel material at the base of their columns and exterior walls, especially if the buildings are subject to a large earthquake or high wind condition." 

The firm is still inspecting the building to understand the depth of impact, but believes that buildings 500A, 500B, 600A, 600B, 700A, 700B and the administration library are likely to have the same structural concerns.

"Since these buildings are currently occupied by students and staff, this results in a concern for public safety," the letter said. 

Pam LaPointe, a teacher at James Madison, who was the sole speaker during Sunday night's public comment session, said she was very happy that the district took such swift action once the building concerns were identified, but said she was concerned that a Friday night barbecue and Saturday school were still allowed to go on this weekend despite the finding on Friday.

The building is nearly four decades old and is currently undergoing renovations, funded by Indio’s $225-million Measure KK, passed in November 2014.

The Desert Sun's Chris Damien contributed to this report.