Aberdeen School District looking into flood insurance

The Aberdeen School District will have flood elevation certificates completed for Aberdeen High School and the district’s administration building in order to gauge the costs of buying flood insurance.

The decision at Tuesday night’s school board meeting comes after Aberdeen High School was damaged by January’s flood and the district is looking at an estimated $450,000 in cleanup and repairs.

The insurance would come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and, as part of the agreement, the Washington School Risk Management Pool would cover the costs of having the elevation certificates completed, which would determine the flood risk for each building.

With a $2,000 deductible, it would cost the district $8,671 annually to pay for a flood insurance policy on the high school, while coverage for the administration building would cost $8,626. Under a $25,000 deductible, it would cost $6,100 to insure the high school and $6,069 to cover the administration building.

When the high school was damaged in January, the district’s insurance covered the incident because it was labeled a “water intrusion,” due to fecal contamination from sewage water.

“If that wouldn’t have happened, the disaster would have been considered a flood and the district would have had to pay 100 percent of the costs,” said David Herrington, Aberdeen School District Director of Business and Support Services.

Since the flooding, a backflow valve has been installed behind the high school’s kitchen to prevent a future contamination. The valve costs around $15,000.

Herrington will get quotes on insuring both buildings and bring them to the board for further consideration.

On Tuesday night the board also approved a bid for installing new wireless capabilities across the district, with wall mounts and controllers allowing computers in Aberdeen schools to connect with one another wirelessly using local area networks.

The board accepted a bid from MicroK12 for $149,848, but the district will only have to pay $22,477.29 of that thanks to funding from E-Rate, a Federal Communications Commission program that provides discounts to schools and libraries for affordable telecommunications and internet access.

Director of Technology for the district, Mike Williams, said Aberdeen would like to male the purchases this fall.

“We’re ready to accept the challenges of the next five to ten years (with the new technology),” said Williams.

During the meeting the board carried a motion to accept the proposed 2015-16 academic calendar, which has school starting for students on Sept. 9 and ending on Jun. 21. The calendar can be seen online at the district’s website, asd5.org.