Damage to three schools in the Boerne Independent School District that occurred within the span of a week should be repaired and ready by the time school opens in the fall.
Mark Stahl, Boerne ISD’s executive director of operations, briefed Boerne's school trustees at a July 8 emergency meeting on recent damage to Boerne High School and Cibolo Creek and Curington elementaries that occurred between June 28 and July 3.
Nineteen rooms, including classrooms and administrative rooms, were flooded and suffered substantial damage at Cibolo Creek Elementary June 28 after a contractor’s piece of equipment hit an overhead sprinkler system pipe, dislodging it from its coupling and flooding the vicinity.
The Boerne High School auditorium stage will have to be entirely rebuilt after an early-morning fire June 29 in one of the band rooms next to the auditorium.
Stahl said stage lights belonging to The Bridge Fellowship — a non-denominational church renting the auditorium for its Sunday services — were found to be plugged into the wall.
“There was an electrical short and the lights caught on fire,’ Stahl said. The resulting fire, he said, triggered the fire alarm system and activated the sprinklers, which also resulted in substantial flooding and damage.
On July 3, another contractor error caused minor flooding at Curington Elementary.
A general contractor working in the Curington library shut off one of the school’s two fire risers but failed to shut off the second. “When they cut the line to relocate it, there was still some pressure in the line,” Stahl said, causing some isolated flooding in the library and in an adjacent hallway.
“That was confined and isolated, so it was cleaned up rather quickly,” Stahl told the board.
At Boerne High, some string instruments were lost in the blaze, and some cabinetry was affected. “The stage will need to be replaced as soon as it can be assessed,” Stahl said.
Board Trustee Carlin Friar asked about the insurance policy carried by the church organization using Boerne High.
“Typically, it’s a $1 million policy, and that was the policy with Bridge Fellowship,” Stahl said.
Between the church lights and the two contractor errors, Friar asked, “Ultimately, we shouldn’t see any expense out of any of these.”
“That is correct,” Stahl replied.
Stahl said board action at that July 8 meeting would start the repair and recovery process. The trustees present for the meeting voted unanimously to work with the district’s mitigation contractor who, Stahl said, “assured me they could get done by the time school starts.”
“All three campuses should be ready for the opening of fall classes,” Stahl said.
No prices were discussed at the meeting, as the board voted to approve the emergency measures, which allowed the board to bypass the normal bid process and immediately hire a firm to begin the work.
ServPro of the Hill Country was announced as the firm to carry the projects forward.
Stahl said the district made a claim with TASB on the Boerne High fire incident.
“They are willing to fund that claim immediately, or whenever we authorize it,” he said. TASB will work with the Bridge Fellowship insurance to subrogate those costs.
Cibolo Creek Elementary's repair is being handled through the abatement contractor’s insurance.
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