The roof at Lakeside High School in Ashtabula collapsed due to the weight of this week's heavy snow.
"You can see the roof is actually lifting from the top of the building, you can see the separation of it," Ashtabula Area City Schools Superintendent Lisa Newsome said. "Right now we cannot use any part of Lakeside High School."
The district will remain closed for the remainder of the week due to the inclement weather, but Lakeside High School will remain closed indefinitely.
Lakeside's principal, Douglas Wetherholt, is now scrambling to find a plan for the roughly 800 high school students. He said he wants to get them into a physical classroom as soon as possible.
"Whether that means they're going to be in a different building than traditionally expected with the rest of the school or we're moving into an off-site building for the main part of the school," Wetherholt said.
The first priority is to find a location, but there are still more logistics to figure out before they can get their high schoolers back to learning in person.
"Transportation, moving staff, nutrition services, lunches, breakfasts because we are, we provide food for all of our students," Newsome said.
Having gone through the COVID-19 pandemic, they are aware that virtual learning is an option; however, it is not something they are interested in at this time. Newsome said she hopes to get the students into a physical classroom by the middle of the next week.
"We're maybe looking at mid-week next week. I know Christmas break is coming up but we would like to have something in place before Christmas break. I would like to see them in person learning before we go on Christmas break," Newsome said.
In the meantime, the district must inspect the rest of the schools to ensure there are no other issues.
"As a parent, I would be concerned with that too, so we have done inspections to make sure that they are safe," Newsome said.
