After the Highland Middle School suffered a devastating fire in the early morning hours of March 20, 2024, the 344 students had to to finish the school year by sharing the facilities at the High School.

Last week Peter Miller, Director of Operations and Maintenance, said the Middle School will open on time next week and gave a tour of the school to the Southern Ulster Times. He said the Middle School contains 87,000 sq. ft. and every inch has been painted.

Miller’s tour started with a small storeroom room off of the kitchen where the fire broke out. He said the fire has been ruled accidental, “which could be anything, including electrical.”

Miller said the actual fire was put out quickly but smoke had spread throughout the entire building. He stressed that, “every area of the building has been touched and cleaned and any materials that have the potential of holding smoke smell were removed or contained where they seal it with a material that has a paint-shellac type of mix that is spayed on to seal it.”

Miller noted that one of the first things done was to remove material above the drop ceiling that was put in place with a substance that contained some asbestos. He added that it was not airborne but was removed anyway in the interest of safety.

“All of the abatement was done, all of the air testing were done and all of the clearances was done by a third party to make sure there was no asbestos in the air,” he said. “In conjunction with that, we had a hygienist come in through our major contractor ServPro, who has done air testing numerous times throughout the building, to ensure there are no products of combustion or anything still in the air.”

Miller said all input and exhaust air ducts in the building were checked and/or cleaned and filters replaced and new ducts in the kitchen area that was closest to the fire were installed.

“There is no worry about that; it’s not like now we’re going to turn on an HVAC unit and all of a sudden you will smell smoke or there will be particles of combustion,” he said.

Miller said some items like photocopiers and desk top computers were simply removed and replaced due to the difficulty in cleaning them and the potential of failure down the road if they did not. He added that the food service line equipment and the large freezer were replaced. The cafeteria and gym floors were not damaged but each received a new coating finish, making them look brand new.

Miller initially thought classes at the Middle School would be able to resume within a few weeks, “but once we realized that we were going into abatement, then I started thinking about everything tied to that and realized that changed things.”

Miller wants parents to know that, “everything that was done was based on a collective cooperation and an understanding by all parties involved that the ultimate thing was making sure that everything was safe when everybody came back, whether it was the environment physically or anything that would be air quality...The building is as clean as its ever been and 100% repainted.”

Superintendent Joel Freer described the work done at the Middle School, “as a pretty amazing feat that was undertaken. We wouldn’t have done it without the support of the parents and the faculty and staff. They were amazing when we had to relocate them to the high school. There were no complaints and everybody rose to the challenge. You could not ask for a better community response from everybody. I think that helped make this not a traumatic event for our students.”

Freer said the work got done through a coordinated effort by the Palumbo Group that is running the capital project, the architectural firm CS Arch who made sure the work was done according to code, and ServPro, who have been on site since the day of the fire. He was especially grateful to the Highland Fire Department that quickly knocked down the fire.

“The smoke damage permeated the building, and when it gets in tiles it can only be removed by an asbestos abatement; you’re in for a long project,” he said. “The New York School Insurance Reciprocal has been available to us and really with no questions asked and have come through for the district and I couldn’t be more thankful for the efforts of all of those folks.” He said they took care of the financial matters to pay for the work that was done.

“We were so lucky that the insurance company was so generous to us. If we said we needed something, we just had to provide the proof and evidence of what we needed and they were great to work with,” he said.

A final cost for the work is to be determined when the final bills are submitted and calculated.