East Grade Update 10/8/26
Franklin Families and Community Members,
This week, we finished up the work on East Grade that resulted in the Health, Life, Safety Emergency that required us to move students/staff out of the building. The plaster ceiling of the 1st floor corridor in East underwent a complete replacement, and we provided more structural support to the staircases on both ends. Aesthetic work, such as painting, does need to be done, but that will happen at a later date.
Graham & Hyde, the district architect of record, and the Health, Life, Safety inspector for the Regional Office of Education have both looked at the building and said we are safe to move students/staff back into the building.
There are two rooms they said they would be cautious about. These rooms are the upstairs administrator office and the upstairs room that has been serving as our K-2 special education classroom. With that in mind, I am going to keep those rooms closed until we can get the plaster addressed; however, this will not affect the functionality of the building and its ability to meet our students’ educational needs–as long as we keep these rooms closed, there is no jeopardy to student safety.
The change this does necessitate is moving K-2 special education down to the 1st floor in what has been our PK room. Therefore, PK will stay in the Lions Den until we are able to take care of the upstairs rooms–we will try to schedule work to take place during days/breaks when students will not be present, but as of now, we do not have a definitive timeline for this.
This Friday (10/9), we will utilize sub coverage in order to get classrooms back to East. K-2 students WILL BE in attendance Friday, and we expect that we will be able to get East classrooms set by the end of the day Friday. PK will also be in attendance Friday–they are not doing any moving, but I want to clarify that they will still be in attendance.
Please anticipate that East will operate as normal for all K-2 students beginning Tuesday, October 13th (there is no school Monday, October 12th), with PK remaining in the Lions Den.
I want to thank our students, staff, and the community for all of their support during this period, and I want to specifically thank the Lions Den for their willingness to host our PK program. I count ourselves exceptionally lucky to be in a community such as Franklin and the surrounding area.
As always, if you have questions, do not hesitate to reach out to me at the school.
Respectfully,
Braxton Stewart, Superintendent