A panel of school district engineers, safety officers and representatives met with parents and other stakeholders at a town hall meeting on August 13 to discuss land movements at Marquez Charter Elementary School that forced closure of three classrooms.
On August 6, school officials announced that land movement had affected the northwest side (facing Palisades Drive) of the Marquez Elementary campus that includes portions of the lower playground (handball courts), the building with classrooms seven, eight and nine and the canyon-facing area of the property.
The problem was first noticed in April when there were reports of recurring cracks on the playground, as well as cracks on the interior and exterior walls, separation of several ceiling/wall joints and cracked window and door frames in the affected classrooms, according to LAUSD officials.
Since school began on August 13, students in these classrooms have been accommodated in other rooms on campus.
LAUSD Regional Facilities Director Angelo Robinson said that the three classrooms were closed because they showed signs of distress, such as minor distortion of wooden frames and evidence of ground displacement. However, the building is safe, said officials.
In the next two weeks District officials will be analyzing collected data and formulating a mitigation process, which most likely won’t start until late September/ early October, said Dr. Daniel E. Pradel, a geo-forensic expert and school district consultant.
Pradel told the Marquez audience that the canyon below the campus was filled to mitigate a landslide movement in the 1950s. Three decades later, the same landslide area caused land movement again, which prompted officials to completely remove the landslide soil and stabilize the slope. The canyon was filled again with a mixture of soil and rocks, he added.
Pradel said LAUSD crews have drilled three boreholes up to 65 feet in length to investigate the depth and content/mixture of the fill, particularly in the area near the land movement. This portion of the playground will be fenced off to students as crews continue their work.
“One of the advantages of drilling these boreholes is that we will see very clearly the material that is [under the playground],” Pradel said. “There was a tremendous amount of fill used.”
Depending on what the data shows, Pradel said that “most likely a system of continuous repair and/or resurfacing of the pavement” will take place. He added that the type of playground repairs will be based on flexible methodology. However, he said that mitigation details at this point, without a full analysis of the data, would be inconclusive.
School officials said they will keep stakeholders informed of the ongoing effort to mitigate the land movement and repair the playground.
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