When schools have to close: Fuel leaks, sewer floods push Nunavut students out – Nunatsiaq News
Sep 6, 2023
16 schools experienced unplanned closures 31 times over past 2 school years
This is the second of a three-part series examining the state of Nunavut’s school infrastructure and how it impacts the delivery of education in the territory. Watch for Part 3 in the coming weeks. Here is a link to Part 1 in the series.
Burst pipes, sewer flooding, a lack of heat and fuel leaks are forcing Nunavut’s aging schools to shut their doors to students.
Between September 2021 and June 2023, 16 schools experienced unplanned closures a combined 31 times, according to documents Nunatsiaq News received from the Department of Education.
That resulted in a total of 111.5 days of unplanned building closures across the territory.
Some of those closures averaged just one or two days, due to issues like community power outages or city water shortages. Others stretched on for several days or even weeks in order to fix major issues.
Fourteen schools closed during the 2021-22 school year due to a lack of power in the building, a lack of heat, a burst sprinkler pipe causing flooding, poor air quality, odour from a glycol leak, a diesel spill and a sewer flood, among other issues.
