Mineola trustees hear about middle school power outages, evacuation and gym construction delays

Assistant Superintendent for Business and Operations Will Herman updated the Mineola Union Free School District Board of Education on a recent middle-school power outage, an evacuation and ongoing construction delays that could affect the gym’s availability this school year.

Herman said the district experienced a loss of power at the middle school — the third outage in two weeks — and that the latest incident was caused when a breaker on recently installed equipment tripped after sensing electrical surges. The district activated its evacuation plan, used district-owned buses to transport students to the high-school auditorium, and provided meals. "We were able to do that quickly... feeding 600 kids," Herman said, and added the evacuation and feeding operation worked "incredibly flawless."

Herman also gave a construction update. He said the softball field project is "on track" but has paused work during extremely cold weather. By contrast, the middle-school gym project is behind schedule: "The gymnasium continues to be off track... it's at least 2 months behind, quite possibly 4 months behind because we still don't have approvals for items that have a major lead time, such as steel and windows," Herman told the board. He warned that, unless the schedule is corrected, "we do not foresee using that gym this school year," and added there is a risk the district could face difficulties opening on Sept. 1 if delays persist.

Board members thanked staff for the rapid evacuation response and for maintaining student safety. Herman emphasized the district’s internal transportation capacity — owning its buses — allowed a fast response time: he said the first students arrived at the high school within about 15 minutes of the call to the bus depot.

No formal action was taken at the meeting; the update was presented as part of the superintendent/business operations report.