Nicholas County’s Cherry River Elementary closes for remainder of school year due to ongoing renovations
By Matthew Young, RealWV
RICHWOOD, W.Va. – Yet another change is on the horizon for students and families of Nicholas County Schools. Just a few days after it was announced that both Birch River and Zela Elementary Schools would be permanently closing their doors at the end of the current school year, an emergency meeting of the county’s Board of Education resulted in the addition of Cherry River to the list – albeit much sooner, yet less permanent.
“We had three different agencies tell us that we’ve got to do something now, it cannot wait,” Nicholas County Schools Superintendent Terrance Beam told RealWV on Thursday. “So I called for a Special Meeting of the Board of Education today so we could deal with it.”
Richwood’s Cherry River Elementary is in the midst of a renovation, which will see the facility transformed into a full Pre K – 12 school once completed. According to Beam, the ongoing construction, combined with recent heavy rainfalls, has created several safety concerns for students and staff members making use of the building. The escalation of these concerns – as well as urging from the county’s fire marshal and Dept. of Homeland Security and Emergency Management – prompted the decision to relocate Cherry River students to the nearby Panther Creek Elementary School for the remainder of the school year.
“It really started becoming a problem about three weeks ago,” Beam explained. “We had ceiling tiles beginning to drop down, and all the rain was causing leaks in the kitchen because the new roof hasn’t been installed yet.”
Beam added that the kitchen was rendered unusable, making meal preparation impossible, noting that, “We’ve been on bag-lunches because we can’t wash any dishes.”
In addition to the leaking roof and falling tiles, Beam said that recent fire drills had revealed the fire alarms to be insufficient, as they are simply not loud enough to be heard in all areas of the school. Furthermore, the Dept. of Homeland Security and Emergency Management required the closing of a main corridor due to ongoing construction.”
“That corridor being closed would have really created a problem,” Beam said. “If there had been an emergency – a fire or a school shooting – our kids would have been completely trapped in one side of the building.”
A final concern, one raised by the Dept. of Health and explained by Beam, was in regard to the amount of construction dust and debris making its way into the facility’s ventilation system.
Students finished out the school day on Thursday at Cherry River, and will now be on a remote-learning schedule until Friday, Oct. 18, when they will report to Panther Creek Elementary School.
Located approximately seven-and-a-half-miles from Cherry River, Panther Creek is designed to accommodate as many as 400 students. According to Beam, with the addition of the entire student-body from Cherry River, the student-count in Panther Creek would be approximately 350.
Beam noted that Cherry River students and staff will have their own space at Panther Creek, including dedicated classrooms and offices. School officials expect construction to be completed sometime next fall, however, the elementary portion will hopefully be ready for students to return in August.
