When the Geary School Board met in regular session Monday, Jim Rainey, the high school principal said during his report that the word of the month was resilience. That is what it has taken for the school district to begin moving forward after a devastating fire that consumed the old gym and damaged other parts of the campus whether through fire, heat damage, smoke damage or water used to put out the flames.
Rainey said the students were settling in to their new normal, helped in large part by gaining access to the newly constructed classrooms only two days after students returned to school. Rainey also noted the absentee rate was exceedingly low after the crisis, with only two students out of school, each with a verified illness.
“They wanted and needed to see each other,” he said.
Superintendent Sean Buchannan said this has been the most challenging month of his professional career, but rapid response on the part of
“This has been the most challenging month of my professional career”
— Sean Buchanan, Geary Superintendent of Schools
the school’s insurer has helped.
The company has already released the first advance on the settlement, money that will help get things back on an even keel by meeting immediate expenses. These figures are not the final settlements, just preliminary payments. The total loss amount will be reached by agreement between the school district and the insurance company.
Three hundred fifty thousand dollars has been issued on the business personal property. That will be used to start replacing contents like teachers’ computers. Many of those items are on order now, but may not arrive until after the end of school. Another $1.5 million will go toward debris removal and $250,000 is for extra expenses like rental of portable classrooms.
Buchanan said the district should begin conversations with architectural firms. There are high definition images of the destroyed building that were taken when the district considered a bond issue to build a new campus and those can be used to move the replacement forward.
The insurance company has already been on site, taking measurements and surveying damage so that it can formulate an offer. An engineer was at the school Monday to assess the remaining portions of the structure to determine whether they are solid enough to reuse or should be rebuilt.
Board president Jason Bernhardt questioned whether it would be cheaper to build new rather than rebuild the damaged parts of the school. Buchannan said the insurance company would not replace anything that an engineer said was undamaged.
“We – the school – needs its own people,” Buchanan said. “I think the best way to do that is to get an architect.” He went on to point out that any new building would have to have a fire suppression system – a sprinkler system – and that would in all likelihood require new water lines and perhaps drain lines as well. Those requirements would mean demolition of at least part of the foundation, damaged or not.
In the end, the board determined that it would interview three architectural firms – MA+ from Oklahoma City, Kerr 3 from Edmond and Easley and Associates from Enid to determine which firm it would use to guide the board as it makes decisions on the rebuild of Geary High School.