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By LOUIS LLOVIO
St. Andrew’s School in Richmond is delaying the start of its school year until Sept. 28 after a fire at the school Sunday afternoon.
Michelle Rosman, director of marketing and communications at the school, said school was scheduled to start Sept. 8 and then close for the week that UCI Road World Championships were here.
“We will extend the year by a week in June and make up a few more days during the year to recover learning time,” Rosman said Monday.
The school, which is undergoing a $1.2 million renovation this summer, serves low-income families. To help parents with limited options, several child care centers in the area are offering to help families without child care during the delay.
“Of course, child care and changing schedules are a challenge for those with limited financial resources,” Rosman said
Richmond fire crews responded to a call Sunday afternoon at the school. A construction supervisor happened to be there when an air conditioning unit on the third floor caught fire. He grabbed a fire extinguisher while a fire alarm notified the fire department.
Crews arrived on the scene at about 4:45 p.m. and quickly extinguished the fire. School would normally have been back in session already, but the opening was pushed back two weeks to allow for the construction work. Classroom furniture was to begin arriving Monday.
Rosman described the damage as minimal. There is some smoke damage in the classroom where the fire occurred and there’s water in the three classrooms beneath the classroom. The issue, though, is the large amount of water that needs to dry before they can move forward.
“There’s a good amount of cleanup work, water restoration work, that needs to happen,” she said. “From the very initial conversations (Sunday), they are thinking that we won’t be able to do that in time to open (Sept. 8) which was our day to open. We are looking at a little bit of a delay, but at this point we
aren’t clear enough on all that needs to happen to know exactly when that will be.”