School district drains pool after vendor-backed truck breaks window; waterline repairs and bidding irregularity prompt rebid recommendation

The Orange City School District drained its high school pool after a vendor-backed truck broke a pool window on Feb. 1, sending glass into the water and requiring cleanup, maintenance and a full drain-and-refill operation, Superintendent Dr. Campbell said at the Feb. 10 board meeting.

The district began draining the pool on Feb. 3 and completed the process early the morning of Feb. 10, the operations staff member told the board. "We started filling the pool this morning at 9," the operations staff member said. Staff estimated, conservatively, that the pool could be back in service by Feb. 18, though they said it might be sooner depending on fill and heat-up rates.

Why it matters: the incident occurred during championship season for the swim team, and several board members and parents raised concerns about communication to families and teams. "I have a problem with the lack of communication," one board member said, citing parents' messages that they had not received clear details about timing. Operations staff said they had filed an insurance claim the day of the incident and have documented labor, boarding and water costs for the claim.

Operations staff described the technical constraints that lengthened the repair: the natatorium has a diving well that shares the fill/drain system with the main pool and the pool holds roughly 220,000 gallons, so draining and refilling through the district's available piping is slow. Staff said new titanium boilers purchased earlier will speed reheating once the pool is full. "The new pool boilers ... the last time we drained the pool, we heated it up in a little over a day," the operations staff member said, adding that heating this time could take a day to a day-and-a-half.

Board members pressed for clearer, earlier communication to parents and coaches because of competition schedules. Operations staff said they had informed the insurance company and documented lost programming and other impacts for reimbursement, and that the window replacement is on order and will arrive in two to three weeks if there are no delays.

Separately, staff reported continued trouble with a long-running waterline project. Operations staff said crews repaired a recent leak under Pepper Pike and installed roughly 10 feet of new pipe under the roadway to reduce future road closures. Bids for a larger two-phase waterline project were opened Feb. 7; staff reported an irregularity in the bid process when the engineer emailed a question-and-answer and asked bidders to include a contingency in the final price. Four of five bidders received that email; the apparent low bidder did not and therefore did not include the contingency.

After consulting legal counsel and citing Ohio bidding rules about the 72-hour extension requirement when new information is issued, staff recommended rejecting all bids and rebidding. Staff also said Cleveland Water approved switching from iron pipe to PVC, which would lower costs and allow re-phasing: make the more urgent work (phase 2 in the original package) the priority and move the maintenance-building work to a later phase. The operations staff member said the engineer would need about a week to revise plans before reposting, and that work would still be planned for the summer.

Cost context and next steps: staff provided a high-level cost indication for the recent emergency repair ("in the thirties" of thousands of dollars), noting overtime, pipe costs and equipment for deep excavation. The district said it expects to submit costs to insurance and to pursue reimbursement from the vendor's insurer as appropriate. On bidding, staff recommended transparency and rebidding to avoid any appearance of unfairness; the board accepted that recommendation and later approved the operations consent resolutions that include the related items.

Ending: District staff said they will provide further updates on the pool's reopening, window replacement timing, insurance reimbursement and the rebid schedule for the waterline project at future meetings.