Fires, flooding and lots of adjustments
Gateway Center for the Handicapped has persevered in the wake of a suspicious fire, flooded portables and leaking gas.
After a fire gutted four classrooms over the winter break, the school has been plagued by a rash of bad luck, Principal Laurene Beto said. Gilroy Fire Investigator Andy Holiday confirmed that the investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing and could not say whether or not the fire was an act of arson.
“We’re trying to get rebuilt and reorganized but we’re struggling,” Beto said. “The damage is devastating.”
In her second year as principal of Gateway, she’s taking it all in stride. Gateway is a county run school that serves students with special needs. The fire left administrators scrambling to find classrooms for about 30 displaced students. The building housing the ruined classroom has stood its ground for about 40 years, staff said, and had just recently been remodeled.
The displaced students are currently strewn about South County. One class was relocated to Burnett Elementary School in Morgan Hill and another to South Valley Continuation School in San Martin. A third class was housed in a portable installed in a vacant area on Gateway’s campus.
That portable has posed additional problems for the school. Coming from Modesto and due to be installed the Saturday before classes resumed, the portable arrived a day late due to the severe wind and rains that hit the state the weekend of Jan. 5 and 6. When it finally arrived, the electrician was working late into the night, finishing its installation only hours before the students were due to return to school the next morning.
Because of the stormy January weather, the portable promptly began leaking, rendering it unfit as a classroom and forcing the students to relocate yet again to a temporary classroom at Brownell Middle School.
Jamie Windgassen, the mother of a 19-year-old student who was bounced from the portable to Brownell, said that the move has taken quite a bit of readjusting for her and her son, Cody, who has attended Gateway since he was 5.
Due to a fractured foot, Windgassen’s son is confined to a wheelchair and navigating the soggy portable was “like an obstacle course” for him, she said. Her son is severly challenged and had a harder time adapting to a new classroom than other students. Educationally autistic, he is “very noisy in conveying his feelings,” she said.
“Given everything that’s gone on, it’s been hell for this boy,” she added. “And it’s been equally hellish for the classroom because they have to deal with the noise factor.”
“It destroyed us when the fire happened,” she said. “It really is so tragic that someone’s boredom could facilitate the level of discomfort and stress we are enduring. If they knew the havoc they wreaked.”
Fortunately, the students at Brownell returned to the fixed portable Monday, Beto said. Not only have students had to make big adjustments, but veteran teachers have also lost a career’s worth of work in the fires. Additionally, thousands of dollars in special equipment has been lost and little was salvaged from the blackened remains.
“Students, parents, teachers and the county have really risen to the occasion though,” Beto said.
The students’ individualized education plans depend on certain equipment and although insurance will replace the equipment eventually, Gateway is relying on donations to fulfill some of its more immediate needs.
“It’s not the best situation for the kids but they’ve done pretty well with the change,” Beto said. “They’ve made the best of it, parents too. But the current situation is far from ideal.”
The Gilroy Fire Department has volunteered to perform a flag raising ceremony at Gateway at 10 a.m. Feb. 26. Beto is hoping that the ceremony will be the start of happier days for Gateway.
