All Oswego High School students were dismissed from school Monday morning after a water main broke overnight, causing a large amount of damage to classrooms and teacher offices on the first and second floors of the building, district officials said.
District spokeswoman Theresa Komitas said the water main break was on the second floor of the building and impacted around 19 classrooms, along with teacher offices and main hallways on both floors.
The leak wasn’t discovered until early Monday morning when staff members arrived and went to that part of the building, which primarily houses social studies and math disciplines, she said.
“The water main break had several hours to spread water, so there is a lot,” Komitas said.
The students were dismissed around 9 a.m. and began remote instruction during fifth period at 10:56 a.m., the district said on social media.
Contractors began on-site repair work on Monday, including removing tiles, extracting water from the carpets and seeing if water seeped into the drywall.
“It’ll take time to assess and we will do air quality testing too,” Komitas said. “We want to make sure our students are in safe areas before we bring everyone back.”
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As of late Monday afternoon, district officials had not announced whether students would return in person Tuesday.
The school was set to host athletic and after-school activities Monday because those areas were not impacted by the water main break, officials said. The main entrance and athletic entrances to the building were also not impacted.