Update: New Brunswick Students Allowed To Return To Roosevelt School

Update: Roosevelt Elementary School in New Brunswick will be open on Wednesday.

Students will be allowed to return to the school on Livingston Avenue Wednesday morning, after a rupture of a sprinkler system supply line damaged the school earlier this week.

“Thanks to impressive, around-the-clock coordination between New Brunswick Public Schools maintenance teams, the office of New Brunswick Mayor James M. Cahill, city personnel, the Middlesex County Office of Emergency Management, and school district administrators and teachers, cleanup and repairs at the 83 Livingston Avenue building progressed with remarkable quickness,” a news release said. “Initial projections were that Roosevelt School – which sustained water and electrical damage when a sub-basement sprinkler supply line burst during the early hours of Monday morning -- might not be ready to house students again for several weeks.”

The school’s 899 students did not attend classes Monday or Tuesday, and over the next few weeks, district officials will determine when those days should be made up.

“The teamwork that went into this effort has been incredible,” New Brunswick Superintendent of Schools Aubrey Johnson said in a prepared statement. “School and district staff have worked 24/7, preparing for every eventuality, and we received tremendous support from Mayor Cahill’s office and from the county, too. As an example, the city’s building inspector was on-site through the day on Tuesday to help ensure we avoid unnecessary delays.”

The district will use generators at the building.

School officials had initially planned to have the Roosevelt Elementary School students start attending classes at Building 40 on Van Dyke Avenue Wednesday.

Around 4:30 a.m. Monday, the line ruptured at the K-5 school, causing “water and limited electrical damage at the sub-basement level, rendering the building temporarily unusable,’’ a news release said.

The preliminary plan had called for students to report to Roosevelt School Wednesday morning, then board buses that would have taken them to the Van Dyke Avenue building.

District officials said they initially thought the repair work would take weeks to complete after water spilled into the boiler room at the school.

The building is one of the oldest, if not the oldest school building, in the district.

Photo via New Jersey Schools Development Authority