Wellesley Public Schools Superintendent David Lussier gave an update on the Hunnewell Elementary School fire situation during Wellesley’s School Committee Meeting on Tuesday, revealing that the school will convert 2 of its remaining half days to full ones to help make up for the days lost due to last week’s classroom fire.
No make-up date is required for last Wednesday, the day of the fire. WPS has coordinated with the state’s education commissioner and Department of Elementary & Secondary Education to get a waiver for one of the two other days missed due to the fire, and then to convert this Wednesday and next Wednesday’s scheduled half days to full days. That’s preferable to adding a Monday to the end of the school year, which is slated to be Friday, June 14.
The two 4th grade classrooms directly affected by the fire won’t be used for the rest of this school year. “Those have been sequestered with a negative pressure sort of envelope,” said Lussier, sounding very science-y.
Lussier thanked public safety departments, school personnel and the facilities team for their quick and smart actions in preventing a bad situation from getting worse. He also thanked Matt Chin from the Wellesley Recreation Department for putting together a 2-day camp for Hunnewell kids to help keep dozens of kids engaged and help parents avoid scrambling for last-minute childcare this past Thursday and Friday.
As a reminder, the Hunnewell Fair originally scheduled for May 17 has been rescheduled to May 31.
What was the cause of the fire? Did I miss that in earlier coverage?
Electrical fire. You can see the post here.