Poland students welcomed back with informational assemblies
May 20, 2019
Poland Principal Greg Cuthbertson talks to sixth-graders following an assembly on Monday, May 20, the first day students returned to school after a fire early in the morning of Tuesday, May 14. Sixth-grade classrooms were relocated for the rest of the school year as a result of the fire.
POLAND – Poland Central School District students returned to school on Monday, May 20, for the first time since last week’s fire and attended assemblies to help make sure everyone was comforted and prepared to go back to learning.
Poland Principal Greg Cuthbertson told students that during the closure and now re-opening, safety was the No. 1 priority for school officials.
“We wouldn’t have you back here today if the building wasn’t safe,” he said.
The Poland school building was closed for four days last week following a fire in the school’s basement storage area during the early morning hours on Tuesday, May 14. Around-the-clock cleaning and air purification took place, and air quality testing was conducted, before a decision was made on Sunday, May 19, to re-open school for students this week.
Two assemblies were held on Monday, May 20: one for students in sixth grade through 12th grade shortly after the school day started and another for kindergarten through fifth grade midway through the morning. Prekindergarten teachers also discussed the fire with students in their classrooms.
Cuthbertson made sure that students knew the district will not have to make up the missed days of instruction because the days will be classified with the state as “extraordinary condition days” under the category of “destruction of school building.” He said the district will be working on creative ways to make up some of that instructional time – such as by using advisement periods or otherwise adjusting schedules.
The adjustments and adversity can be a challenge, but they can also be a life lesson and learning experience, Cuthbertson said, during the assembly for older students.
“It’s something that gets thrown at you, but that’s life, guys,” he said. “This stuff happens, but we have to make the best of it. The only way we’re going to do that is if we pull together.”
Following the first assembly, Cuthbertson had sixth-graders, whose classrooms were relocated due to the fire, stay for some additional discussion. District officials are in the process of going through-sixth-graders lockers and reviewing the status of items in the lockers, and sixth-graders had to adjust to new locations for their main classrooms, some additional classrooms they go to and their lockers.
“It’s like the first day for you guys, in some sense,” Cuthbertson said. “We’ve just got to get back to our routine. That’s the best thing we can do: get back to our routine.”
During both assemblies, Cuthbertson pointed out that a positive of this experience is that it showed that the school’s monitoring system quickly and effectively alerted authorities and school officials about the fire.
“Our system that we have here that can tell us if there’s a fire worked,” Cuthbertson said, during the assembly with younger students. “If we didn’t have that system in place, it could have been much, much worse. Our system worked.”
Cuthbertson took questions from students at the end of both assemblies. So many elementary students kept raising their hands with questions that Cuthbertson – in order to get the students to classes and lunch on time – eventually had to ask them to either write down additional questions to submit to him or ask their teachers, who could check with Cuthbertson if they didn’t know the answers.
Parents who have any questions also are welcome to contact Cuthbertson at 315-826-7900, extension 3, or gcuthbertson@polandcsd.org. Additional stories about the fire and efforts since then to re-open the school are available under the news section of the homepage at www.polandcs.org.
Students also were warned during the assemblies that a fire drill would take place in the afternoon in order to practice exiting the building with some classes relocated and with some alternate routes in place. Cuthbertson said the recent fire is a reminder of the importance of the drills.
“When stuff like this happens, we have to be prepared for that,” he said.
The fire drill went smoothly.
Below, Poland Principal Greg Cuthbertson speaks to students during an assembly for students in sixth-grade through 12th grade on Monday, May 20, the first day students returned to school after a fire early in the morning of Tuesday, May 14. There also was an assembly for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, and prekindergarten teachers spoke about the topic with students in their classrooms.
Below, Poland Principal Greg Cuthbertson speaks to students during an assembly for students in kindergarten through fifth grade on Monday, May 20, the first day students returned to school after a fire early in the morning of Tuesday, May 14. There also was an assembly for students in sixth grade through 12th grade, and prekindergarten teachers spoke about the topic with students in their classrooms.