Learning happens every day at North Beach Elementary School in Miami Beach. It’s an A-rated school for a reason.
“Kids are learning, I have to say we are blessed with amazing teachers, amazing principal, I mean the academics I really can’t complain about,” said Katie Ferrer, a North Beach parent.
However, Ferrer and a group of other parents are complaining about the physical state of the school. There are several examples of exposed, rusted rebar with spalling concrete; stucco falling off walls, and cracks in floors and pillars. They’re worried the school, which was built in 1936, is not safe.
“We have young kids here and we want to make sure they’re protected,” said parent Richard Segal. “There’s rebar that’s shown in various places, there’s ceilings that were coming down as of last week because of water intrusion.”
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Ever since the Surfside tragedy occurred, everyone has a deeper understanding of the issues which can lead to structural integrity issues in older buildings.
Michelle Lari says she worries every day about her child’s safety at North Beach Elementary.
“Every day, the other day it was pouring outside, it started raining inside my son’s classroom, my son’s classroom is on the first floor, not even the second floor, and a tile fell through the roof into my son’s classroom, it was on the floor, what if it had fallen on a child’s head?” Lari said.
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“I’m worried, yesterday, my daughter told me that rats came into their classroom at night and bit into their decorative pumpkins,” Katie Ferrer said.
Repairs are underway at the school. Since the parents started raising their concerns last April, the school district has had five separate structural engineers do walk-through inspections. That’s the standard method of assessing structural integrity, and each of the five said the school is safe and does not have serious issues.
“In all their reports, they do note, we have to address this, we have to repair it, but the building itself is not in any danger of falling,” said Raul Perez, chief facilities officer for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, who added that he would not hesitate to send his one child to North Beach.
“Absolutely not, absolutely not, I would send my kid here with no issues," he said.
Perez says the school’s entire roof is being replaced to solve the leaks, which led to mold in some classrooms.
“We’ve dealt with the mold, there was some mold in classrooms, that’s been addressed,” Perez said.
The same sort of issues exist in all of the district’s older, vintage school buildings, Perez said, and the repair projects are continuous throughout the county.
The parents at North Beach are hoping the district does a thorough, top to bottom assessment to include air quality inside the building. Perez said the next step is to do what’s called a destructive inspection, in which engineers drill into walls and columns to get a better look at the structure.
The bottom line for the time being, Perez emphasizes, is that the school is safe.
