PAISD: Reclaiming facilties
Published 10:15 am Tuesday, June 12, 2018
- Work on the Port Arthur Independent School District Administration Building and Lucian Adams Elementary School has been completed and staff and administration are currently in the process of moving back. The administration building opens back up June 18. (Lorenzo Salinas/The News)
By Lorenzo Salinas
After more than nine months away, it seems safe to say there’s no place like home — or, more accurately, there’s no place like school.
Work on the Port Arthur Independent School District Administration Building and Lucian Adams Elementary School has been completed, and both buildings sit ready to welcome back their staff and students.
Both locations had suffered significant water damage from Tropical Storm Harvey, and had since been a big focus of the district to be repaired and made functional again.
“We are moving back gradually,” Superintendent Mark Porterie said this week. “HB Neild (& Sons, Inc.) has done a magnificent job in renovating the administration building and N&T (Construction) have done equally as terrific a job on renovating Adams Elementary.”
The moving process for staff has been continuing since Thursday, and will continue well into next week.
Porterie said both teachers and staff are filing back into their respective locations.
“We’re into a soft move right now,” Porterie said. “We’re moving in next week over four days. Our last day at the office on Procter Street is the 14th. From there we’ll open up again for business on June 18th.”
The administration staff has previously been operating at Lamar State College Port Arthur campus.
“We’re sincerely thankful to Lamar State College for allowing us — and for renting us — their facility for the past nine months,” Porterie said.
Porterie also thanked the principals of Booker T. Washington and Dick Dowling Elementary Schools, Erica Seastrunk and Amy Newcomb-Jordan respectively, for allowing Adams staff and students to take up residence at their schools while work on Adams was being completed.
“We’re so excited to move back in the early summer,” Porterie said.
“We’re just happy to be back at our own location. While we appreciate the place we were, there’s just no place like home and we’re just happy to be back.”
For board president Debra Ambroise, the sentiment would seem to be mutual. She said the move signals PAISD’s return to form.
“We’re back, but we never left,” she said. “We were temporarily displaced, as many of our citizens were; but we’re going home. That’s the most important thing.”
Administration office hours during the summer will be from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
School starts Aug. 15.
