PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Southwark Elementary School students displaced by asbestos are settling into their temporary schools, while crews continue work on their building.
The school at 9th and Mifflin streets has been closed since Oct. 30, after dust was found in the school's attic on a floor known to contain asbestos.
Some 900 students at Southwark spent last week learning virtually. This week, students in kindergarten through fifth grade started classes in person at South Philadelphia High School, while grades six, seven and eight attended classes at Childs Elementary.
Southwark teacher Matt Taylor said his kindergarten students adjusted well to their temporary classroom at South Philadelphia High. "At first, they were a little timid. They saw the big building, they saw everything being different," Taylor told KYW Newsradio.
"As soon as they saw each other, they saw the familiar — they saw the rug when they came into the room, their tables with their names on it, they settled in pretty nicely."
South Philly High principal Kimlime Chek-Taylor says her students are separated from the elementary kids. "We made it clear to our high schoolers that they are to use certain stairways that we have blocked off," she said.
With his staff split between two locations, Southwark principal Andrew Lukov said he's been keeping in touch with his staff just as he did during the pandemic.
"Emails, phone calls, texts. Checking in with the team, Zoom meetings," he said. "We're quite attuned to this way of learning. We're quite attuned to being very flexible and to really expect that anything can happen."
While Southwark students attend classes in so-called "swing spaces," crews continue to seal off Southwark's attic area. "They're still continuing to isolate the attic. Any penetrations from the attic to the third floor are being sealed," said Paul Bonewicz, the district's director of maintenance. Work is expected to finish Nov. 20, according to Bonewicz, with children moving back to their regular classrooms after that.
Lukov plans to hold a virtual forum to update parents Thursday at 6 p.m.