We will use this page to update you on our current Roof/Construction Issue. More recent posts will be toward the bottom of the page.
If you have any questions/comments – please contact Joseph Ferriero, Principal at [email protected]
June 28
St. Mary’s parents, friends, faculty, alumni and followers-
As some of you may have read on Facebook, part of the St. Mary’s school roof collapsed today. There is about a 16’x20′ hole on the roof. Water flooded into the building and affected all floors and rooms of the school. There is a significant amount of damage.
Father contacted the insurance company and they sent out Service Master Emergency Crew who deals with catastrophes like this on a daily basis. They showed up around 5 p.m. today and their crew will begin clean up work tonight. The man in charge is thinking it will take about a week to get things emptied out of the school and dried out. He sounded pretty confident that the school would be ready for students in September. He will be updating Father and Parish Council President, Corey Poppe, with progress. From what we were told today, we have a very good insurance policy and are in good hands.
At this point, there is nothing any of us can do but pray. The building is not safe and the public is not allowed in. Service Master will be cleaning up, drying out and getting contractors in to rebuild and repair areas of the school. The contents of the school like desks, electronics, books, etc. all will be gone through by this company and they will determine what can be saved, what needs to be thrown out and working with our insurance company to make sure things are compensated for and covered.
The St. Mary’s Advisory Board and faculty members will continue to update you as progress is made.
Jessica Huebner
St. Mary’s Advisory Board Member
June 29
An encouraging update for you after a bad day at St. Mary’s School. Our insurance provider quickly dispatched disaster cleanup crews to Morris. The team is already working tonight to tarp the hole in the roof.
Starting Monday, the grounds and building will be bustling. The project manager — who we’re absolutely blessed is on the scene — reported that cleanup should take about a week. From there, construction, electrical, plumbing and other contractors will begin damage repair.
Today, church leaders promised we’d remind our parishioners and the greater community that it’s a dangerous scene and we’ll stay away for our safety.
Right now, the project manager says he estimates the school year should begin as normal and we’ll come home to a sparkling clean building. As a result, our 100 Year Centennial Celebration is also scheduled as planned! Happy Birthday, St. Mary’s School!
June 30
St. Mary’s parents, faculty, staff, alumni and friends-
Throughout the next couple of weeks, I will be updating you as to the progress of the clean up efforts and putting our school back in order. I will be getting information directly from John, Project Manager for ServiceMaster Recovery Management (SRM). He is staying in contact with Corey Poppe (Parish Council President), Chad Braegelmann (St. Mary’s Advisory Board Chairperson), Father, our insurance representative and myself.
This is the latest….
SRM arrived on site Sunday morning at 7:30am. Main focus included a temporary roof repair, water extraction and set up drying equipment. Source of the roof drain failure is also believed to have been identified. SRM carpentry staff found an empty wine bottle sitting on top of the pipe stopping water from draining off the roof. Morris PD arrived and collected the wine bottle that is believed to be what caused the blockage in the roof drainage system.
Job Progress:
Water extraction – 100% on all three levels.
Temporary roof repair – 100%
Drying equipment setup – 75% – More Power will be needed to get adequate drying equipment placed.
The plan for today (Monday) includes having roll off dumpsters on-site along with storage containers and power for equipment; and to remove all carpet. A representative from our claim service will be arriving to do a walk through and conducting an evaluation of the damages.
The clean-up crew is working very quickly and efficiently, and thanks the public for staying out of the way so that they can do their job.
Sincerely,
Jessica Huebner
St. Mary’s Board Advisory Member
ServiceMaster is onsite in force as clean up efforts are in full swing. Today, any standing water that was left is gone, a major humidifying system is humming and flooring is being removed. The project manager estimates this stage of the project will take a few weeks.
We are so blessed to have incredible insurance coverage, great insurance representatives and we wholeheartedly would recommend this ServiceMaster crew to anyone! They are absolute professionals.
July 1
Teachers were able to visit the classrooms today to take out personal items. Chad Braegelmann (board president) and Father Todd conducted a walkthrough of the building to assess progress. Building inspector checked on the building. Tech services are working to move the servers and get the telephones operational.
July 3
St. Mary’s Community,
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
~ Psalm 46:1
I am happy to report much progress on our building. My goal is to provide you with updated information at least 3 times per week. We will post this information on our school’s website at stmarysmorris.com/roof and on our Facebook pages. If you ever have questions, please feel free to contact me and I will do my best to get them answered.
Update:
-
Hardwood floors in some classrooms are being removed. July 1
- Teachers were able to go into their classrooms to retrieve personal effects.
- Chad Braegelmann (board president) and Father Todd conducted a walkthrough of the building to assess progress.
- Building inspector checked on the building. Tech services are working to move the servers and get the telephones operational.
- July 2
- Most of the second floor has been inventoried, items that need to be discarded have been and others have been boxed and put into storage.
- Hardwood floors that were damaged have begun to be removed.
- Task Force (which includes several parish and school representatives) met to discuss scope of damage, formed sub-committees to research and help make decisions on future construction and considered alternate plans in the slim chance the building is not available in September.
While the progress on our building has been quick thus far there is still a long road ahead. We appreciate your continued prayers and support. We have set up a special email address for those of you who have specific comments, suggestions or questions about the roof. Please email [email protected] and someone from our task force will be sure to reply to you. You can also feel free to contact me if you have any concerns about the school.
All my best and God Bless,
Joseph Ferriero, M.Ed.
Principal
July 7
St. Mary’s Community,
I hope that everyone had a great holiday weekend and wish you all a happy Independence Day! The hard work continued over this holiday weekend as the crews moved forward in getting our building back to us.
Update:
- July 3
Demo of hardwood on third floor continued.
Inventory of the entire building completed.
Items from second and third floor are now in storage pods.
Contractors looked at heating, telephone and internet.
- July 4
Reduced sized crew due to the holiday.
Items from first and second floor are being packed.
- July 5
Crew continued to pack and move contents out of the first and second floors.
Additional air movers were set to focus on drying the walls.
- July 6
Crew continued cleaning and packing out contents from the basement.
Crew continued to compile the inventory spreadsheet and sort through the pictures of salvageable and non-Salvageable contents.
With the rain the past few days there was some leaking, but that has been cleaned. Remember you can email [email protected] with comments and visit www.stmarysmorris.com/roof to read these updates and see photos.
All my best and God Bless,
Joseph Ferriero, M.Ed.
Principal
July 14
St. Mary’s Community,
I’m here. Yes, I have finally arrived in Morris and I couldn’t be happier! I was able to go into the building today to take a look at the damage and progress. The crew seems to have worked to get all of the damaged areas and materials taken out of the school. Now we begin the reconstruction phase.
Update:
- All damaged ceilings and floors have been removed from the entire school.
- Drying progress is steady and items continue to become dry. Many Items are close to being dry and most areas should be completely dry within the next day or so.
- The building has been cleaned, sanitized and packed out.
We will continue to keep you informed about the progress in the building. Remember you can email [email protected] with comments and visit www.stmarysmorris.com/roof to read these updates and see photos.
All my best and God Bless,
Joseph Ferriero, M.Ed.
Principal
July 24
St. Mary’s Community,
I want to apologize for not having an update to you in the past 10 days. Unfortunately there hasn’t been too much to report on. With the school empty we have been waiting for the work bids to come in from several companies. Our insurance company required that each piece of work that needs to be done has two submitted bids. I’m happy to report that most of the bids are in and the work has begun!!
We have an amazing general contractor who has been available for us at all hours. He has answered all of our questions regarding repairs and has walked us through the entire process. We’re blessed to have him working on our building.
Update:
Scaffolding has been set up throughout the school so that ceilings can be repaired.
- Roof is being repaired: workers are removing the debris and beginning to fix the roof. They will work on the interior ceiling on the top floor and then repair the hole on the top. They estimate that this repair will be done either tomorrow or Monday so that they can begin the actual roof repair.
- They are pretty confident that the building will be ready to open on September 21, but as you are probably aware that might not be the case.
- The task force is ready with ‘PLAN B’. We are planning to have mobile classrooms in our parking lot. These classrooms will be equipped with all needed supplies so that teachers can teach during the first three weeks of school. I will have more details on this process very soon. I taught in mobile classrooms twice in my career – they’re pretty darn good! They are climate controlled, very clean, have great lighting and are conducive to learning.
Many people have raised concerns about major changes to the building. We are n not planning many changes at all. We are planning on updating our fire safety system, installing a security system, new telephone system and new high efficient lighting. We are also remodeling the main office to be more inviting and friendly (Darla won’t have her drive up window anymore!). Remember you can email [email protected] with comments and visit www.stmarysmorris.com/roof to read these updates and see photos.
All my best and God Bless,
Joseph Ferriero, M.Ed.
Principal
[email protected]
August 6
Hello Everyone,
Hopefully you all have had a chance to read the great article put out by the Morris Sun Tribune about our school. As you can see we are very hopeful that our school building will be open for the first day!
Construction Updates:
- Roof repaired
- top floor ceiling repaired & lighting fixtures almost complete
- Classroom air-conditioning has been installed in several rooms and more should be completed within the next few days
- Much electrical work has been done (updates and repairs)
- Security system installation has been scheduled
We are very happy with the progress. Even though we are hopeful that our building will be open by September 1, with any construction project (especially one of this size) there could be some road blocks. We hope that even with a delay or two all of our students will be in their classrooms by the second or third week of September. To prepare, just in case some classrooms are not ready, we have begun to make arrangements with First Lutheran Church for classroom space if we need it for the first few days if all classrooms are not complete. They have been very supportive and we thank them!!
It has been great to meet some of you and our students this summer. I look forward to meeting the rest of you soon – hopefully at the fair this weekend! Don’t forget to visit the Shake Shack at the fair and support St. Mary’s!
All My Best & God Bless,
Mr. Ferriero
August 11
I hope everyone had a great time at the fair this weekend – I sure did (my strawberry shake helped!) Thank you to everyone who donated their time to help make the shake shack a HUGE success!!
The school building is coming along really well. During my walk through this morning I couldn’t believe the progress! The electrical work is just about finished throughout the building, air conditioning is installed in many classrooms, walls are up in the music room (along with some sound proofing) and the halls are clear and ready for paint. Sub-floors are repaired and many rooms have their pre-carpet flooring installed!
Many teachers have been here and are beginning to go through their storage pods to prepare for the first days of school and move in! The teachers have a long road ahead of them, but they are an extremely motivated group – I’m so happy that I get to work with them!
Be sure to check out our website for back to school updates, forms and ELC Trip information. Our school calendar is online and our Google Calendar is being set up now so that you can get LIVE updates to the calendar as they happen.
All My Best & God Bless,
Mr. Ferriero
August 15
So much is being done in our school now! Sub-floors are in, taping is done, air condition is pretty much done, and electrical work is almost complete.
Painting of the building should begin next week.
August 22
Well, it looks like the top floor of the school is JUST about done! Yes, done. The Service Master team is hoping to move the teacher’s belongings back in next week.
The basement (kindergarten and music) are also close to being finished. They need their carpeting and they can begin to move back in. First floor classrooms are being painted and then their carpet will be in.
Looks like we will be in and ready for September 2! The crew may be in the school at night the first week working on some finishing touches but most work will be done!