For the second year in a row, December storms have overwhelmed Aragon’s lower science wing. Despite the fact that standing water has displaced engineering and computer science students out of class, the district has yet to publicize its plans for any permanent solution.
Aragon’s lower science wing flooded for the first time this winter on Dec. 2, and once again during California’s “storm of the decade” on Dec. 11, which shut down many other schools in the Bay Area. Successive rainfall only worsened the conditions of the classrooms.
Before the rain began, the administration implemented a line of tarp-covered hay bales, sandbags, and pipes to redirect the water around the lower wing.
When that failed to prevent flooding, concrete barriers were placed at the entrance of the student parking lot in an attempt to stop the water, leaving students to park in the small lot by the softball field or somewhere else in the neighborhood.
However, all the temporary solutions, under the district’s current flood damage mitigation budget of $40,000 are beginning to add up, and a permanent solution needs to be implemented to fix the issues.
Enough is enough with the temporary solutions. They are way too expensive, and this is a problem that is obviously not going away. The hay bales alone cost $14,000, and the Aragon administration does not have a clear roadmap to a permanent solution.
The Aragon community has dealt with flooding, parking lot chaos and an unusable classrooms for too long to not have a clear answer as to when the root cause of all the above issues will be fixed. If we are to continue to tolerate this mess, then the district must commit to a deadline.
Even if they are not sure of their plans or goals, they should set a date when they need to have their plans and goals figured out by. This entire process has lacked transparency and accountability.
