The San Marino High School campus recently experienced a water outage due to tree roots damaging the main water pipe on Monday, sending its teachers, staff and students to spend the rest of their day at Huntington Middle School.
Maintenance and operations crews worked diligently to restore water access to the high school by Tuesday.
“Our maintenance and operations team does a stellar job maintaining our four schools,” Superintendent Linda de la Torre said. “However, we need community support when it comes to our aging facilities.”
This unexpected water outage was a result of the San Marino Unified School District’s aging facilities, said de la Torre, who noted that a facilities mishap of this kind is not a first-time occurrence.
Last year, at Carver Elementary, de la Torre said students were sent home when the central air conditioner stopped working during a triple-digit heat wave.
To fund basic repairs in the future, SMUSD is exploring the possibility of a capital facilities bond for its aging school facilities. A local bond would allow the schools to access matching funds at the state level should a statewide bond also pass in the Nov. 5 general election.
First published in the Feb. 29 issue of the San Marino Tribune
