Hilham Elementary School Cleared For Classes To Resume Friday

Hilham Elementary School will resume classes as normal Friday after a gas leak caused an early dismissal Thursday morning.

Principal Kelly Montgomery said the school has been thoroughly inspected and cleared to reopen.

“The maintenance team has actually been on the roof all day long,” Montgomery said. “So they are clearing and working one by one on our new HVAC units to make sure the hook ups on those are correct. They actually found one very small leak, but that was fixed very quickly this morning.”

Montgomery said the school acted quickly and evacuated all students. Montgomery said its safety team is set to meet next week to further practice procedures.

“We have it on our calendar for our safety team to meet in a week or so,” Montgomery said. “We haven’t had a formal meeting. As we debriefed this afternoon, we talked about the fact that our people jumped into action very quickly and efficiently for the fact that we have not necessarily walked through these scenarios yet. For what it was, it went very smooth.”

Montgomery said the Hilham Fire Department sits adjacent to the school. Montgomery said students were escorted to the property for a safe dismissal. Montgomerey said the community as a whole including parents cooperated well.