Parents question school quake risk
Alameda officials to decide on closing campus that could sink
School officials and a group of distressed parents in Alameda agree that if a big earthquake strikes, the saturated ground under Lum Elementary School would likely become unstable, a process known as liquefaction that could cause classrooms to sink and come apart.
But the two sides disagree on how serious and urgent the problem is — and what the school board should do about it when it meets Tuesday.
District Superintendent Sean McPhetridge, on the advice of two structural engineering firms that studied the soil, recommended closing Lum at the end of the school year and moving students to several other city schools.
Some parents, though, responded by gathering their own expert advice and mounting a campaign to keep the school open next year, allowing time for the district to further explore the problem and possible solutions.
The Alameda Unified School District board is expected to decide the school’s fate at its regular meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
It’s been less than a month since parents first learned that the soil under Lum was especially prone to liquefaction. District officials said they discovered the issue while preparing the site for the construction of a
new building.
The school consists of singlestory buildings, with groups of classrooms, or pods, circling a common area. Based on soil samples, the project’s engineer determined that in the event of a catastrophic 100-year quake — one with a probability of 1 percent in any given year — the buildings could sink up to 5 inches, potentially collapsing or partially collapsing.
“I know this is terrible news to hear,” McPhetridge told parents in late April. “But as staff we will be recommending to the board that we close the site in 2017-18 due to our concern for the safety of students and staff.”
The board initially scheduled a vote in early May on whether to transfer students over the summer, but postponed the vote after parents demanded more time to understand and discuss the situation.
“It came as a total shock to everyone there,” said parent Joe Keiser, who is helping spearhead the fight to keep the school open. “My sense is that (district officials) are being conservative compounded by conservative.”
The parents gathered their own evidence, including opinions from engineers and other experts who said the issue needs further study to determine whether school structures would be at risk and, if they are, what options are available to shore them up.
“With each day, as more information is gathered, it has become clearer and clearer that the district’s recommendation was premature,” said Keiser, who has a son at Lum and a daughter who previously attended. “We ask that the board look at the expert opinion that we’ve gathered, and we trust they will come to the right decision.”
District officials understand the parents’ feelings and are “deeply empathetic,” said spokeswoman Susan Davis. But the focus, she said, is student and staff safety in the face of potential building collapse.
“We have done all the kinds of tests that you can do,” Davis said. “We’re recommending removing the kids from the campus because we don’t want to take the risk that the Big One is going to happen while they’re there.”
The 500 Lum students would be distributed among a handful of other Alameda schools, district officials said. They acknowledged that many Alameda schools sit on soil that could liquefy but said that Lum faces heightened risk because the ground is subject to liquefaction down 60 or 70 feet. Keiser remains unconvinced. “My kid goes there every day,” he said. “I could tell you absolutely that I’m 100 percent convinced that he would be less safe at a multistory school than he would be at the single-story school at Lum.”
Parent Deb Balot, whose daughter is a Lum first-grader, said the district is moving too quickly to close a school that has sat on the same soil since the 1950s — and has seen its share of earthquakes without buckling. If the risk is so great, she asked, why didn’t the district pull out students immediately?
Balot and other parents fear that moving students will remove the incentive for the district to improve and reopen the school. They want the students to remain in place in the fall, and hope any repairs can be done with the students still on the campus.
“They need to slow down,” she said.
District officials said there is no way to fix the problem over the next school year, and that keeping the school open is too risky.
“As a district we have a legal, moral, and professional obligation to protect the lives and safety of our students and staff,” McPhetridge said.