The ceiling tiles in the corner of Room 1013 collapsed due to a leak that persisted over several weeks starting in late September and resulted in media adviser Rachel Kidder moving all her classes to another classroom.

The leak first began as water dripping through a lone ceiling tile in the corner of the room that no one had noticed. Then after repeated days of rain, the tile was not only the source of tiny drops falling into a trash can. Instead, the tile had begun to bulge under the weight of a large amount of rainwater. Kidder alerted the front office, who sent the janitorial staff to remove the tile, but no one patched the leak.

“It was really upsetting because we had given them notice before,” newspaper editor Avery Myers (12) said. “Ms. Kidder had asked them multiple times to fix it and had let them know before it even got really bad. But, they just cleaned it up [and] they never actually fixed the issue.”

The following week, the leak would spread to the three neighboring tiles and two tiles outside the media classroom. This development drastically increased the amount of water from the ceiling, and Kidder could not catch all of the water in trash cans. The janitorial staff continued to clean up the water and would place trash cans to capture much of the water, but the leak still needed to be fixed.

“It’s frustrating for everybody, but things break,” assistant principal James Spradley said. “It’s been turned in, and I believe that people have been up there to fix it… So, hopefully, in the next rain, it will be repaired and it won’t be flooding in the media room.”

The maintenance coordinator for Midlothian ISD, Nat Gomez, reported that his office received notice from assistant principal Spradley as late as November 9, 2022 and they notified a roofing contractor who arrived on November 12, 2022.

“I think at that time, they determined that there was some damage on the top of the roof, but then they found out that there was a crack in the pipe,” Gomez said. “So we repaired that on Monday, November 14, and I think the ceiling tile has been put in and they are working on the wall right now.”

The leak damaged the wall the tile was above. Unfortunately, the wall was not the only thing affected by water damage as. Kidder’s bulletin board, which she paid for, now has mold on the back of it. In addition, a box filled with her personal items came in contact with water, and two rugs that she also brought herself were ruined by the spread of water on her floor.

“And it makes me really sad that my own teacher had stuff that was damaged that was hers,” Myers said. “That she spent money on, her personal belongings, and there’s no way that they’re gonna compensate her for that.”

The media room also houses expensive computer and camera equipment totaling thousands of dollars.

“You would think that if they put so much money into putting equipment into that room that they would protect it from leaks and floods,” A/V executive producer, Jared Burnham (12) said.

Some of the students in the media classes are very disgruntled with how the administration has handled the leak.

“Because they never took the time to fix it, it kind of makes me feel like MISD does not care about the media program at all,” Myers said. “It makes me feel like what I’m doing in class isn’t important enough for them to actually fund a room that isn’t leaking and falling apart.”