Dear Jenkintown School Community,
First and foremost, we hope that everyone is safe and well. We understand that the fire at SPS Technologies created much disruption in our community and personally impacted many of our families. We sincerely appreciate your patience and flexibility as we continue to navigate this situation and still deliver instruction. Additionally, we would like to thank our staff, who have gone above and beyond to support our students educationally.
I want to share our plans for school operations during the next two days, Thursday and Friday, February 20th and 21st.
Today, safety officials including the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with local fire and police departments, lifted the evacuation and shelter in place orders for the area around the SPS Technologies fire. We are in close communication with local officials, including Jenkintown Police Chief Thomas Scott, who assured us that air quality testing by monitoring agencies shows a return to normal levels, similar to the readings that we would have received prior to the fire.
Out of an abundance of caution, the Jenkintown School District will remain in virtual instruction for one additional day – Thursday, February 20th. We will have a bus available for our Eastern Center for Arts and Technology students that will leave the back circle at 11:30 AM. We want all of our Eastern students to attend their courses at Eastern tomorrow.
Tomorrow our custodial and maintenance team will thoroughly clean our buildings and install new air filters in our air purifiers. They will also check our grounds for debris. Additionally, we will continue to monitor air quality over the next several days.
Safety officials (environmental, police, and fire) have cleared Jenkintown for an in-person return to school; therefore, we will resume in-person instruction on Friday, February 21st. We will also offer a virtual option to students on Friday, as some families evacuated long distances to stay with relatives and are not able to quickly return to the district.
We will continue to coordinate and communicate closely with local safety officials, who have assured us that air quality monitoring will continue at the site and in our area for some time. Knowing that this issue is extremely important to our school community, the EPA installed a monitoring device on our school grounds today to ensure that air quality continues to be safe and clear.
I want to share a few important points:
- First, we know this fire has caused significant concern and disruption for many of our families and staff members. We ask that you share with your children that safety officials have assured us that it is safe to return to our schools.
- Officials have told us that while the SPS fire is contained, a chemical fire like this may take some time to be completely and officially extinguished. We have been assured that fire and safety crews will continue to monitor the site closely, and will be able to address any new concerns quickly. They have also assured us that crews will still be able to respond swiftly to any issues or concerns that might arise at our school building; This fire has not depleted their resources or their ability to quickly respond to other emergencies.
- While the Abington and Cheltenham School Districts are not as close to the SPS fire as our schools, they did close for two days and are returning to in-person instruction tomorrow.
- Abington Township will be providing updates from safety officials on its website.
We very much appreciate your patience and grace for our staff and the entire school community as we work through this issue together. We understand you may have questions and concerns. Chief Scott will be at our Board of Education meeting on Monday to address our community. Thank you for your flexibility as we navigate this unprecedented incident. If we can support your family in any way, please do not hesitate to reach out to our administrative team.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jill Takacs, Superintendent
