West Richland Real Estate Blog

Cari was turned around this morning when she was dropping off our son, Sean, at Enterprise Middle School. A couple teachers were in front of the school alerting parents that the school had no power or water. Other homes in the area of the school were also without power, we’re told, but we don’t know how many homes were/are affected. Our house is about a half-mile south of Enterprise but we didn’t lose power overnight.

The Richland School District left a message about a half-hour ago explaining that a transformer went down at about 7:00 am, forcing them to close for the day and send kids back home.

But what about kids that were already on buses and headed to Enterprise? RSD says they were dropped off at Enterprise so that the buses could finish their elementary routes and had adult supervision while at the school. Parents were then called to come pick up their kids at the school. There were also plans to bus children who couldn’t be picked up over to Wiley Elementary, but that apparently wasn’t needed.

Update: Troy Berglund from Benton REA says that the power outage hit at about 6:00 am today and affected about 200 homes right in the vicinity of the school.

Two updates from RSD:

10:10 am – full power was restored to Enterprise Middle School so the building has started to heat up. There is damage to some of the HVAC coils from being frozen so a few rooms are not getting heat. RSD maintenance staff are evaluating the damage and will start making repairs.

12:00 noon – Enterprise will reopen on Wednesday unless the heating system is more damaged than we currently believe.

With our son now up in 6th grade and at Enterprise Middle School, we had our first chance to experience the school’s Winterfest program tonight. They started it just a couple years ago, I think, and it’s become the main fund raiser for the school.

We skipped the early part of the event — dinner & silent auction — because both of our kids are picky eaters (well, one more than the other but still…). But we did get to the school in time to enjoy a brief holiday concert by the school band.

Gotta say that I was quite impressed with the band as a whole. They did a nice job. And I’ll say the same thing about most of the performers in the talent show, which followed the band’s performance. There were singers, dancers, a comedy skit or two, and the school’s drama club even previewed the first part of their upcoming play.

All in all, it was a fun night. Hopefully next year the dinner options will fit more in line with what the McGee kids will eat and we’ll be able to enjoy the entire event.

Oh, the school administrators mentioned that they raised close to $5,000 tonight. Don’t know how that compares to the last couple years, but it sounds pretty impressive.

Did you catch this story last week about a “mixup” involving a Richland School District bus and some students from Tapteal Elementary here in West Richland?

In short, several Tapteal students didn’t arrive home via bus at their normal time last Monday. They had gotten on the wrong bus, and the bus driver wasn’t answering radio calls from the dispatch center.

Why’d this happen? Because last Monday was the first day that some drivers were allowed to take over new routes based on seniority.

What the…????

Here’s how the Herald paraphrases the explanation from transportation manager David Conrad:

“Conrad said the first school day in November is when the drivers can change to new routes, which has the potential to create confusion.”

Yeah, I’ll say! Listen, all due respect to bus drivers … totally understand changing routes so that drivers with seniority get routes they like … etc., etc. But here’s an idea for Richland School District:

How about letting drivers change routes before the school year starts to avoid this “potential confusion”?

Who on earth would ever think it’s a good idea to go changing bus routes/drivers while school is in session? And these people are educators. Unbelievable.

End of rant. But seriously, am I wrong? I don’t think so.