Milford City Council agreed to waive fees associated with the demolition, repairs, temporary use, permanent repairs and use and all related matters arising from the fire. The waiver was approved with a vote of six to zero as three council members were absent.
“The City of Milford is here to support our partner, the Milford School District, in every way we can,” a memo supplied by City Manager Chris Coleman read. “We are one city, a nd we will continue to be Milford Strong!”
Superintendent Travis Moorman spoke to council about how the fire has impacted the district.
“As many of you are fully aware, there was a catastrophic fire early yesterday morning,” Moorman said. “We do not believe right now that there’s much salvageable from the school. We are currently and actively working as a crisis and response team to determine how to get our students and staff from Lulu Ross back into the circle of education, we feel we have a clear plan for our staff members to to return beginning tomorrow and will begin reaching out to our families and community members that attend Lulu Ross.”
Moorman stated that the district was checking in with students to determine any needs. They have partnered with the Food Bank of Delaware to provide meals for families in need that attend the school and information is being sent directly to those families through the all-call message system. Moorman also reminded council that the district closed Mispillion Elementary due to the lack of phones and internet, but that had been repaired so those students will return to class tomorrow.
“Obviously, the students at Ross will remain home for the remainder of this week while we work through this process. I believe that we are fortunate in that we just recently opened the Milford Middle School, and with the reorganization of the district last year, we do have available spaces in multiple schools across the district,” Moorman said. “So, our goal is to ensure that we bring back our students to our schools. I would like to publicly thank the surrounding school districts. We have heard from every school district in the state of Delaware, asking what our needs are, what kinds of supports that they could provide. They even offered up classroom spaces. We had our local churches reach out and said we have Sunday school spaces. So, we most certainly appreciate that, and that was part of our conversation.”
Moorman explained that the district was concerned about students being sent out of the district to a strange school and that they wanted to keep children within the district.
“Anyone that’s ever been in Ross Elementary School know that that school was a lot more than just the walls. It was the staff members and the students and the strength of that community and that they come together under consistent leadership. It is one of the schools that we’ve had stable leadership at over the course of the last 20 years, and that goes a long way,” Moorman said. “I was actually a former teacher at Lulu Ross, beginning my teaching career here in Delaware. I taught second, third, and fourth grade at Ross Elementary School. Many of my students are actually teachers now in the Milford School District, so that school had a very special place in my heart as well.”
The community has come forward to offer overwhelming support, Moorman stated. He thanked council members as well for reaching out when the news was announced.
“We’re still in the infant stages of determining exactly what we need and would like to ask the community to be patient with us,” Moorman said. “It has been very overwhelming, but we have been very appreciative of the supports that are being offered to us throughout all types of organizations and community businesses.”
The district has started a conversation with the insurance company and the State of Delaware about what the first steps are and asked that the city engineer make a visit to the school a priority to determine whether the school should be formally condemned and to issue that decision in writing.
“We spoke to legal counsel today and other districts who have had catastrophic unforeseen impacts on their buildings and they informed us that engagement of city engineers can actually reduce delays in the process,” Moorman said. “I would appreciate that consideration sooner rather than later.”
Moorman also stated that, due to limited space in the district office, there are district staff members whose offices are in classrooms. That means that some of them may be transitioned to other areas. They also have to manage what food service and transportation will look like with the new configurations.
“We have over 100 staff member and 600 students at Ross that have been displaced due to the fire,” Moorman said. “I greatly appreciate the opportunity to come speak to you tonight and we request any supports you can provide.”
Councilman Jason James assured Moorman that council would support the district.
“I can tell you we will not hesitate to extend any help or service that we can” James said. “But I do have a future question because I know you’re still trying to get your arms around it. With that capacity now not available, how far out could this put you?”
Moorman stated that it would be a two-to-three-year recovery time after the fire. At this point, it is not clear whether this will be a renovation or a rebuild from the ground up, which Moorman feels is likely.
“Now, improvements we are looking for at some of our other facilities through Certificates of Necessity, that is a totally separate procedure and process,” Moorman said. “From my understanding, and we are continuously meeting with the state on what these steps look like, is that this tragedy should not impact any potential approval from Certificate of Necessities that we have requested.”
The district has applied for Certificates of Necessity for the past few years and been denied, but Moorman stated that the state was indicating that the district may have success this year. These included renovations to Morris Early Childhood Center and Milford High School. The request included some updates to Ross as well.
“We are here to do whatever we can to help you,” Mayor Todd Culotta said. “We will remove the red tape, get things moving. We’ll work collectively as a community to make this work. There’s no reason with our size not to. We’re a big city but we’re small enough to be nimble and move quick, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
